


The Spaces Between the Stars

by QueenCoffeeBeans



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: (probably), Angst, Colonist (Mass Effect), Destroy Ending, Kaidan is a sweetie tho, Love, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Multi, Post-Mass Effect 3, Post-Reaper War, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rebuilding, Romance, Slow Burn, Sole Survivor (Mass Effect), Starchild wanted to live and sucks, Vanguard (Mass Effect)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-02
Updated: 2019-07-21
Packaged: 2019-10-03 02:38:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,384
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17275529
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenCoffeeBeans/pseuds/QueenCoffeeBeans
Summary: "I would like to be the airthat inhabits you for a momentonly. I would like to be that unnoticed& that necessary."- Margaret Atwood, "Variation on the Word Sleep"The galaxy is forever changed after Commander Jane Shepard destroyed the Reapers. But it isn't just the galaxy that was changed: its inhabitants were too, some for better, others for worse. Most people don't know what happened to the commander, not even her boyfriend, Major Kaidan Alenko. What he does know is this: no matter how far away the two of them are, the two of them will rebuild their lives together.





	1. Prologue

The only reason she knows she’s not dead is because her body is still tearing itself apart. The last time she died—if Garrus was here, he’d tease her about how many times one woman _could_ die—the pain and fear of suffocating in space disappeared at some point before her heart gave out.

 But she’s awake now and her lungs are burning every time she takes a breath, and she can hear her heartbeat in her ears, pounding away like a drum, but in her chest its fluttering, like a bird trapped in a cage. Her leg feels like the time when she was thirteen, when her brother accidentally ran over with the tractor; her head, pounding like when she’d headbutted Uvenk on Tuchanka.

 She takes another deep breath, and a million explosions go off inside her. She coughs and blood spills out of her mouth. She nearly chokes, but some military skill—or is it common sense? —awakens deep in her brain and tells her to put her head to the side to spit it out. Once she finishes, and before she lays back down, that voice speaks again.

 _Get up_ , it says. _You’re not going to die here. Get up, get up, get up_. The world is too bright. She wants to close her eyes and crawl back into the darkness, where the pain felt more like a semi-truck instead of a full-blown one, but the voice doesn’t give up. It’s soothing, even though it doesn’t say anything more than, _Get up, please get up, keep moving_. It takes a while—five minutes? Five hours? Five years? Who can be sure anymore—but eventually, she manages to roll herself onto her stomach and start crawling forward.

 Where is she? The wreckage looks similar, but at the same time unlike any other place she’s ever been, both off-world and on Earth. Her whole chest is screaming at her to stop moving, to please let it all go and just rest, but the voice is telling her to keep going, to not stop for anything or anyone. It feels like there’s nuclear fallout in her lungs, her head is throbbing so badly she feels like it’s going to explode, and she’s just so _tired_. The voice keeps staying calm and urgent, telling her that it’s okay to be tired, but she needs to _keep moving_.

“Have you found any survivors yet, Corporal?”

“Only one, ma’am. Turian, probably only about sixteen. Pretty badly injured, his wounds were pretty badly infected were the looks of things.”

“Goddammit. When Major gave us this assignment, I didn’t expect it to be so grim groundside…”

She wants to lie back down, to embrace the constellations and all the indifferent stars above, to let them take her back to the galaxies and heavens she once read about in storybooks.

The voice has different plans. _Alliance_ , the voice whispers. _Find them, find them, find them_.

And so, she keeps crawling, though in her pain-hazed mind she wonders how she’s going to get these officers attention, to let them know that she is alive and to please, _please_ , make everything stop.

She doesn’t have to do anything. She crawls past a piece of wreckage—or maybe one of the officers does it for her—and, like the end of the tunnel, she hears the Corporal gasp.

“Ma’am?” he calls out, and then, when he gets no response, yells, “Chief!”

“You found someone, Corporal?” the Chief calls, but she sounds too far away.

“Yes ma’am! Survivor! _Human_ survivor! Get the medics over here!”

The corporal is far away too, but at least he still seems close. She groans when he crouches down and starts speaking to her. He’s too loud, his voice sending aftershocks through her brain.

 “All right, Miss, you’ll be all right,” he says. She lays her head down. “Can you speak, Miss? Can you tell me your name? Or…I don’t know, but you need to at least stay awake. We’re getting help for you right now.” She moans in response.

“Medics are on their way. ETA two minutes,” the chief says, too close now too. “Well done, Corporal. Have you got a name from her?”

“Negative ma’am. She doesn’t look to be in the state to be talking at all. God, some of those injuries look really bad…”

“Corporal, whatever you’re about to say next, belay that statement.”

“Aye-aye, ma’am.”

The two are silent, and she is grateful. The world is blurrier now, and everything she sees and hears is oddly echoed, like she is living underwater. She wonders if she is drowning. But she still sees the stars, and the galaxies above—

“Ah shit, Corporal, can you at least perform basic first-aid here? Put some pressure on those—wait, are those the medics? Corporal, go direct the medics. I’ll try and stop of this bleeding…”

“Aye-aye, ma’am!” She hears the corporal running off, his feet pounding the ground. She feels the gloved hands of the chief under her belly and they both groan: the chief with the exertion of trying to flip an unwilling body over, her with the pain of it all.

“Shit,” the chief says again. She feels something soft underneath her, and through her half-closed eyes, she can make out the blurry shapes of the corporal and the medics.

 _Just let me die_ , a different voice says, though she’s unaware if it’s the first voice or her own. No part of her moves, not even as the medics pick her up and flip her onto the stretcher. She groans again. It isn’t the supernova of explosions she felt when she crawled to the soldiers, but even burns from a million fireworks are excruciating. Above the surface, she hears the medics talking.

“She’s got dog tags, ma’am. She’s military.”

“Alliance, too. Those are N7 tags…oh my God! That’s Commander Shepard! Commander Shepard is still alive!”

“Gunnery Chief Smith, please don’t crowd her!” one of the medic’s snaps. “If this is really Shepard, God knows what injuries she’s been through. Please let…”

Whatever that last sentence was, Jane Shepard didn’t hear it. The Hero of the Citadel, the woman who fought the Collectors, the Savior of the Galaxy instead closed her eyes and let herself wait for the moment she joined the stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Howdy kids, thanks for not getting turned off by the summary and reading this fancy piece of garbage. Everything that I post here will be as final as I can make it (we aren't posting drafts here boys), though some small changes will be made to contradictions and the summary as the story gets better. I'm writing this for a couple reasons: one, because Kaidan is not an abusive jackass (guys I love Shakarian as much as the next person, but Kaidan isn't some 'Ron the Death Eater' here) and I kind of wanted him to be the nice dorky boyfriend he was in ME1 and ME3; and two, no one seems to explore the fact that Starchild probably did want to live and would have fucked around if it really wanted? Like let's be real, Starchild's a piece of shit and I kind of wanted to see what the fuck it could do as a host-type thing? And seeing as Shepard's part synthetic...
> 
> Yeah, this story's gonna be a ride. Hope y'all have fun!


	2. One

Ex-Cerberus Operative Miranda Lawson was not a doctor. The Alliance military and the staff at King James Hospital made that _quite_ clear when she sent in an inquiry to join their team. They said that while they appreciated civilian aid, “Miss Lawson was not equipped to handle the delicacies of medical aid on severely injured patients.” In an ordinary case, Miranda would have agreed with them. She didn’t know how to perform an appendectomy. She didn’t have a clue on the proper procedure to amputate a limb. Hell, if she needed to deliver a _baby_ , Miranda felt pretty sure she would end up telling the mother to keep her legs crossed until the doctors arrived.

But Commander Shepard wasn’t an ordinary case. Miranda rebuilt the woman from scratch, fitted her with different cybernetics to repair the pieces they couldn’t replicate from ordinary skin tissue, and made her look and perform better than before. She brought a clinically brain-dead woman back to life. Whatever medical expertise that was, Miranda had it.

But the Alliance didn’t want an ex-terrorist working on their galactic hero. They wanted an actual doctor, and Miranda felt pretty sure most of the doctors in the hospital never worked on someone who ended up being as much synthetic as organic. She sent another fifty letters, all of them rejected. But she still waited. People always came around…even if it did take them a while.

“Are you serious about all this, princess?” Jack asked one night. “You seriously think they’re going to let some cheerleader with nice tits into one of their secret operations?”

“To be honest, Miranda, that does sound a little bit far-fetched,” Kasumi said. “Okay, well, more than a _little_ , but I’m trying to be nice.” Miranda fought against rolling her eyes. The three women weren’t exactly _friends_ , but when the whole universe seemed to be on the brink of destruction only a month before, it seemed only fair to let bygones be bygones, even though Jack still probably wanted to paint her bedroom with Miranda’s innards, while Kasumi most likely stole half of Miranda’s credits while Miranda was watching. However, Miranda wouldn’t have even sought out the position if it weren’t for Jack and Kasumi: several of Jack’s students were being treated at the same hospital, and Jack caught a glimpse at Shepard when she got lost after visiting hours. Kasumi got access into Alliance records during her work on the Crucible and discovered the files detailing Shepard’s rescue and her current medical condition. Jack had gotten the message to Miranda first, while Kasumi ended up sneaking into their comm channel and spamming the chat with all the data she could find about Shepard’s status.

Miranda drummed the rim of her wine glass, like she was playing a piano. “Why not?” she said. “I know every piece of Shepard’s body, both inside and out. I know what pieces of her are still organic, and what areas are heavily synthetic. I spent two years of my life trying to bring her back.”

“This isn’t some kind of fucked-up Frankenstein shit show,” Jack said. “This is actually treating a person.”

“She crash-landed on Earth,” Miranda pointed out.

“Yeah, but there was still an intact body.”

“And who gave Shepard the parts to keep that intact body? When we first got her, she was more like a pile of meat than an actual human. If the Alliance is working on an intact body, they’ve got the Lazarus Project to thank for that.”

“That’s not the fucking _point_.”

“It’s a point enough.”

“Maybe the Alliance is upset that the woman who rebuilt _the_ Commander Shepard wasn’t actually Alliance-affiliated,” Kasumi said. “Or at least, she wasn’t at the time.”

“I’m still not.”

“There you go,” Kasumi said, taking a sip of her neon-orange drink. Miranda wondered if Kasumi drank enough of it, she would actually be visible when she cloaked herself. “They want to keep everything in the family. Better to not risk an outside source ruining the Alliance’s poster girl.”

“The queen of the girl scouts,” Jack muttered into her bottle of beer.

“So if the Alliance screws anything up, they’d end up blaming me and my Cerberus background,” Miranda said. She downed the last of her wine. In the dim light of the bar, it looked a little too much like blood.

“Yeah,” Kasumi said. “They screw up, they can blame Cerberus for shoddy workmanship. They make her as good as new, it was all the technological advances of the Alliance.” Miranda snorted. She grabbed the wine bottle and poured another glass, nearly overfilling it and spilling it all over the table.

“You’d think that because we worked with her, we’d actually get a chance to see her,” Miranda said, more into her wineglass than her tablemates.

“I think it’s more ‘forced into helping her on a suicide mission’, princess,” Jack said. She opened another bottle of beer with her teeth. Miranda winced and prayed that the white stuff she saw was beer froth and not Jack’s teeth chipping away. Kasumi peered at Jack from underneath her hood and caught the bottlecap when Jack tossed it to the side. “Besides, Kasumi’s still a thief, so they don’t want her stealing their fucking medical equipment. You were on the run for six-goddamn-months, so they don’t know what the fuck you were up to: you could have still been with the Illusive Man for all the Alliance knew. And I’m the Psychotic Biotic, so that’s totally someone they want around the Savior of the Galaxy.”

“Are they calling her that now?” Kasumi said, taking an orange slice from her drink and squeezing it onto the table. She dabbed at the juice spots with her glove. “I can see the air quotes around it already.”

“The point is,” Miranda said, “the rest of the Normandy crew—even Garrus and Tali—get to see her whenever they come back. We’re the poor idiots pushed off to the side.” Miranda swallowed the rest of her wine in the glass, before grabbing the bottle and finishing it off in three long gulps. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, before standing up so abruptly that she made her chair fall backwards and the table wobble. Kasumi grabbed her drink without spilling a drop. She made a grab for Jack’s at the same time Jack did, spilling the rest of the beer onto the floor.

“What the fuck, princess?” Jack said, standing up too.

“You don’t need to follow me,” Miranda said. “I’m going to go to the hospital again. I just need an official explanation other than the vague political bullshit they gave me.”

“You just downed a whole bottle of wine in like ten fucking minutes,” Jack said. “You’re going to be shitfaced walking in there.”

“Liquid courage,” Miranda said.

“Oh my _God_.”

“Why are you questioning it?” Kasumi said, taking another few sips of her drink before dumping it into a potted plant just a few steps away from the table. “It’s either going to go extraordinarily well or extraordinarily poorly. Whatever it is, it’s great entertainment.”

“Kasumi—” Miranda said, but Kasumi cut her off by cloaking herself. Jack rolled her eyes and sucked at the beer bottle, trying to get the last dregs.

“Are you coming?” Miranda asked. Jack spat the bottle back out onto the table. It bounced and rolled off next to the potted plant that Kasumi threw her drink in.

“And miss the chance to see the Cerberus cheerleader embarrass herself? _Fuck_ no,” Jack said.

“Good,” Miranda said, in a tone that implied the opposite. With legs wobblier than a baby giraffe, she led the invisible Kasumi and the (unfortunately) still visible Jack out of the bar and onto the sidewalk. Jack quickly motioned for a taxi and forced Miranda in first, then Kasumi, then Jack.

“Take us to King James Hospital,” Miranda said. Her stomach was churning like crazy. She wondered if wine vomit stained fabrics in the same way actual wine did.

“So what’s the plan?” Kasumi asked as she uncloaked herself.

“I dunno. Probably laugh at her when she pukes all over Admiral Hackett,” Jack said.

“I’m just trying to get an explanation,” Miranda said, shooting Jack a glare that should have killed her five times over. Unfortunately, Jack was still alive. Even worse, she kept snarking on Miranda.

“Remember how after Pragia I said I was going to spill your guts all over the walls?” Jack said, snickering. “Looks like you’re about to do it yourself, cheerleader.”

“Can we not go that far?” Kasumi said. “I am not in the mood to see if a test-tube human throws up differently than me.”

“I mean, she’s gotta be flawed somewhere, right?” Jack said. Her face flickered in the streetlamps, making her look ghost-like. “Seems not even Little Miss Fucking Perfect can avoid getting hungover.”

“Can we please stop now?” Miranda asked, clutching her stomach. The bottle of wine on an empty stomach—“You need to eat carbs before you go nuts on the alcohol!” Kasumi said when Miranda ordered the wine, but of course she didn’t listen—seemed to only get worse the longer it took to get to the hospital. Or maybe it was the nerves. Miranda sent in a lot of letters to the hospital, but she’d never actually gone in and spoken to the doctors face-to-face. Maybe she never had the time. Maybe she didn’t want to interrupt them. Maybe she was scared at taking the rejection in-person. It felt like one of the Illusive Man’s tricks, only there was no way to charm herself out of answering it. She put her head on the cool window and closed her eyes as Jack and Kasumi argued as to whether Jack could or couldn’t get alcohol poisoning based on her implant.

Eventually, the car slowed to a stop. Kasumi re-cloaked herself, Jack nearly fell out of the cab, and Miranda gave the driver five pounds extra than she was originally going to, but it seemed like the least she could do for him, especially considering that he just spent half an hour with the world’s best thief, the Psychotic Biotic, and the Cerberus Cheerleader. After she watched the driver peel away, Miranda staggered around and blinked in the hospital’s bright lights.

“You’d think they’d reduce their power a little bit, considering that London has power rations going on,” Kasumi mused from somewhere on Miranda’s left-hand side.

“And let five-hundred people die?” Jack said, scoffing.

“Fair point. Also, Miranda,” Kasumi said, briefly un-cloaking herself again. “I was able to steal some of Cerberus’ files before the Normandy got impounded. It’s all pretty much from the Lazarus Project.” Miranda blinked.

“What?” she said.

“I can transfer the files over to an omni-tool or a datapad. What one would you prefer?”

“Damn, Kasumi,” Jack said. “How did you even get those files?”

“A thief never reveals her secrets,” Kasumi said, typing on her omni-tool. “Or maybe that’s what magicians are supposed to do. Whatever. Anyway, Miranda, I’ve set the files to both your internet and extranet address.” Miranda pulled out her omni-tool. Sure enough, she received ten attachments. Tentatively, Miranda opened one. Her own voice came booming back out at her as a lung surgery played on the screen.

“As you can see here, we ended up abandoning the idea of using tissue from the right lung and instead just used synthetic pieces in order to repair the punctures in her left lung,” screen-Miranda said.

“What made you change your mind?” another voice said, and Miranda swallowed. She forgot that she gave every piece of information to the Illusive Man.

Another voice came on, and Miranda fought the urge to roll her eyes. _Wilson_. “With all due respect, sir, Operative Lawson realized that ou— _my_ initial plan was foolish. We couldn’t take tissue from the right lung without causing severe damage to it.”

“I see,” the Illusive Man said. He paused to take a drag from his cigarette, and Miranda used the ensuing silence as a chance to turn her omni-tool off.

“Never thought I’d hear his voice again,” she mumbled.

“You want to know something funny?” Kasumi said. “In a lot of the Alliance documents, they abbreviated his name as ‘TIM’.”

“Jesus Christ,” Jack said. “And I thought Rodriguez’s name was pathetic. _TIM_? Yeah, that’s a name that’ll make people shit themselves on the battlefield.”

“They won’t accept it,” Miranda said. Jack and Kasumi glanced at her. “They’ll hear the Illusive Man’s voice and they’ll think I’m still with Cerberus. Let’s get back to the bar.” She turned around to call another taxi, but Jack yanked her back with a biotic pull. She pulled a little too hard, and Miranda landed right on her rear.

“Damn,” Jack said. “With a bubble-butt like that I’m surprised you didn’t end up bouncing.”

“What was that for?” Miranda said as Kasumi yanked her up.

“Yeah, it’s called ‘you’re not leaving this hospital until you go in there’, Queen-Bee,” Jack said. She crossed her arms and cocked her head to the side. “The Illusive Man was a major piece of shit, and if there’s a hell I hope that fucker’s rotting in it. But it’s like you said: you were the one who brought Shepard back, and you were the one who built the squad that took on the Collector base. You might piss me off most of the time, princess, but there’s two good things I can say about you: one, you’ve got nice tits, and two, you’re damn good at getting shit done when you put your mind to it.”

“That’s about the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Miranda said. She took a deep breath and gently shook Kasumi’s arm free. She stared up at the hospital again, her fists clenched. “All right then. Let’s do this.”

“And Jack and I will be there as moral support!” Kasumi said. “Jack’ll be the one you can look at for encouragement and me…well, it’ll be good to know my presence is felt.” Miranda gave a quick nod to the two of them before marching her way up to the hospital. Her legs still felt shaky, though she wasn’t quite sure if that was from nerves or from the wine. Luckily, she still managed to make it to the reception desk without turning her ankle in her boots. The receptionist—a young woman whose nametag read “Charlotte”—looked up at Miranda and Jack.

“Erm…” Charlotte said, her fingers hovering above the terminal as she took in their appearances. “Did you two just come from a fancy-dress party?” Miranda _did_ suppose they looked a sight: while her white body-suit was more public-friendly than Jack’s crop top and tattoo combo, the two probably did look like they’d come from a costume contest instead of a bar.

“Good thing I cloaked myself, right?” Kasumi whispered in Miranda’s ear.

“No, actually,” Miranda said to both Charlotte and Kasumi. “We’re here to see Commander Shepard.” Charlotte bit her lip and looked at a spot on her desk.

“Commander Shepard isn’t here,” she said, fiddling with a sticky key on the terminal. “Was there anything else I could help you with?”

“Oh, bullshit,” Jack said, and the two women pressed their palms and leaned over Charlotte’s desk at the same time. “Shepard’s here. She might be in a different ward, but this is the only hospital in a three-mile radius that’s had patients that were hit by the Reaper beam.”

“Plus we worked with Shepard, so we’re kept in the loop as to what happened to her,” Miranda lied.

“ _Plus_ I had access to the Alliance information that stated Shepard’s current medical condition,” Kasumi said, shimmering in-and-out of her cloak as she said it. Charlotte glanced from Jack, to Miranda, to the space where Kasumi stood, and wilted.

“She’s on the third floor. She’s had a whole private room to herself,” Charlotte said. “All the people from the Alliance keep going in there. I think one of the admirals is in there right now. Can you please…go away now?”

“That wasn’t too difficult, was it?” Miranda said. She turned on her heel and walked away. “Come on Jack,” she called as she walked to the elevator. She took a quick glance around and saw Jack do a quick fake-out at Charlotte’s desk before running up to catch the elevator. Miranda clicked the button.

“We make quite a power-team, don’t we?” Miranda said as she watched the numbers on the elevator slowly reach their floor. Jack snorted.

“Don’t let it get to your head,” she said as the elevator doors opened.

“If we’re going to be a girl-squad, can we be like Charlie’s Angels?” Kasumi piped up as the three women stepped into the elevator. “No, wait, actually bring Shepard, Samara, and Tali into the equation and we’ll be like the Sailor Scouts!”

“ _Who?_ ” Jack asked.

* * *

 

Shepard’s room wasn’t that hard to find. It was the only one surrounded completely by Alliance military. Miranda, Jack, and Kasumi turned a corner and, upon seeing the huge swarm of blue in the distance, all quickly turned back around.

“That many members of the Alliance there?” Miranda said. She glared at Jack. “I thought you said there weren’t many people around her room!” Jack shrugged.

“That receptionist did tell us that one of the admirals was in there right now,” Kasumi said. “They’re probably just there for protection.”

“There’s like ten guys there,” Jack pointed out. “They don’t need that many. And if you’re that worried, I’m sure a quick shockwave will send ‘em running.”

“We’re _not_ here to give this hospital anymore patients.”

“If you’d like, I could go check,” Kasumi said. She shimmered and became invisible again. Her soft-padded shoes echoed down the hall as she ran down, before quickly running back. As soon as she saw Miranda and Jack again, she became visible. “What was that admiral that Shepard kept talking about? The one with the grey beard? Hatchet?”

“Hackett,” Miranda said. She sighed and buried her face in her palms. “Great. This is going as well as ever.”

“Might mean two things,” Jack said. “Either Shepard is awake and communicating, or she’s about to die and there’s like a funeral going on in there.”

Miranda pulled her head from her hands so quickly she banged her against the wall. “Kasumi, did you see Shepard’s condition?” she asked.

“No, I could only see the admiral,” Kasumi said. “But they wouldn’t bring ten bodyguards in unless something really big happened, right?”

“And this ward does require fewer medical staff. They moved her from the last time I was in to see the kids,” Jack said. “Before, she was in kind of like an emergency unit.”

“Great,” Miranda said, rubbing the back of her head. “So what am I supposed to do? Just walk up to them and act like I’m Shepard’s doctor or something?”

“Her nurse,” Kasumi said. “That would be a little bit more believable than a doctor.”

“Yeah, a nurse in a porno,” Jack said. “With that outfit, there’s no way they’re going to think she’s a nurse or a doctor.”

“I can steal one,” Kasumi offered.

“A nurse or a doctor? You’re good Kasumi, but no-one’s that good.”

“I meant an outfit. And we’ll all act like medical staff.”

“And then we’ll all get put in jail because we were caught impersonating medical staff,” Miranda said, sighing. She stood up properly. “No, the only way to face this is head on.”

“You’re not gonna puke, are you?” Jack asked from below.

“No,” Miranda said, though she wouldn’t be surprised if she did. “Wish me luck.” She stumbled around the corner again, and tried to muster up any sort of courage, drunken or otherwise. She couldn’t. What she got was a few angry soldiers staring at her as she wobbled towards them.

“I’m here to see Admiral Hackett,” Miranda said. Even before the sentence left her lips, she was aware of how stupid that sentence sounded, like a child on their first job interview.

“The admiral?” one of the soldiers said, and the one on her right hand side started to snicker. “Sure, if you pay me a million credits.”

“So the Alliance is accepting bribes now?” Miranda said, crossing her arms.

“How about two million and a night in bed with you?” said a soldier a few steps away from the first two soldiers. “Actually, forget the two million. How about just a night in—” Shepard’s door opened, and all the soldiers immediately zipped up their mouths and stood to attention. Admiral Hackett walked out.

“At ease,” he grumbled. He frowned at them. “Soldiers, you _do_ know I can see you when you’re goofing off out here, right? Keep doing that, and I’ll tell your chief that he might want to put you all on latrine duty for a month.”

“Um, sir?” the first soldier said, raising her hand. Hackett scowled at her. Her friend pulled her hand down and the soldier started sweating. “Um…that woman over there said she was here to see you?” Hackett turned around and raised his eyebrows. Miranda clasped her hands behind her back, though despite her heels and her posture, she felt incredibly small.

“Yes, I am,” she said, her voice shaking. “I was the one who headed Project Lazarus—”

“—And brought Commander Shepard back after we all presumed her dead. Yes, I know who you are, Operative Lawson,” Hackett said.

“I haven’t been a part of Cerberus since the Normandy was taken by the Alliance,” Miranda said. Hackett had the ball in his court and this was her only chance to put up a decent fight. “The Illusive Man was dangerous and deserved everything that he got. I’m here as a friend to Commander Shepard—”

“Miss Lawson, I know you’re here as more than a friend to Commander Shepard,” Hackett said. He put his hand on his chin and gazed directly into her eyes. Miranda stared back. “You’re here because you want to get involved.”

“I am more than capable of doing so,” Miranda said. “I built Shepard back from _nothing_ , and she saved the bloody galaxy.”

“I know,” Hackett said. “And you’re the only person who knows exactly what kind of tech we’re dealing with. You’re on the team.”

“I’m—what?” Miranda said.

“I don’t believe I stuttered there, Miss Lawson.”

“No, Admiral, I heard you the first time,” Miranda said, feeling her face grow hot. She felt a surge of bile in her throat and she quickly swallowed it down before she embarrassed herself even more. “I’m curious to know as to why you’re so…so willing. I have footage of the surgeries if you want solid proof of my work,” she said, pulling out her omni-tool. Hackett placed his hand on her arm and looked Miranda in her eyes again, much softer than before.

“We’ve already most of it, Miss Lawson. Some of it was left on your terminal on the Normandy, and we were able to pick up other bits and pieces from the raids on Cerberus bases,” Hackett said. “You’re the leader of this project now. Shepard’s been out for a month, and humanity wants to see its hero back. If we could raise the Normandy, we’d use them as a placeholder until Shepard was up and running, but they’ve been off the grid since the Crucible went off.

“So we need Shepard, and the staff here aren’t equipped to bring her back, especially when there’s so many wounded. There’s only one other person that’s performed the impossible, and that’s you. Get in there and wake her up. In exchange, I’ll make sure all of your activities with Cerberus are taken off your record. Troops, let’s head out.” With that, Hackett and his foot-soldiers marched away, leaving Miranda feeling like she did when they recovered Shepard’s body. From behind her, Kasumi and Jack walked up to watch Hackett and the Alliance soldiers leave.

“Well then,” Miranda finally said.

“God, if any of my kids turn out to be that shitty, I’m making them deal with Zaeed,” Jack said. “No, Garrus. Actually, fuck it: both.”

“I thought you met Hackett before this?”

“Yeah, with a group of like sixty other people to get pardoned. Not exactly a heart-to-heart conversation.”

“Did he say when you needed to start? Probably tomorrow, right?” Kasumi said. “Then let’s head back to the bar! You need to celebrate the fact you’ve got a new job now, Miranda!”

“Yeah,” Miranda said. “The most important job in the world. Now, does anyone know if there’s a bin or pizza place nearby? I’m probably going to throw up if we don’t get some of this wine absorbed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kasumi would totally watch vintage tv shows, don't even @ me. Also, Hackett is hard af to write for, as we mainly see him from Shepard's perspective and so we've got to deal with their bias towards him. Also, all of the people from the suicide mission would become friends (except for Tali and Miranda as seen in game) so pls don't hurt my headcanon with that guys, I just want them all to be happy


	3. Two

He wasn’t supposed to be in charge. When she’d become a Spectre, Anderson and Udina gave the ship to _her_. Even though he outranked her by the time they joined up again, she was the one in charge of the ship; at most, he was the second.

“I’m pretty sure that you’re supposed to be in charge of the ship now,” she said one night in her cabin over drinks. “With you being a Major and a Spectre.” He’d burst out laughing and she’d cocked an eyebrow at him.

“I mean, yeah, I guess technically you’re right,” he’d said. “But can you imagine me in charge of the Normandy? Joker and Tali would be yelling at me in five minutes because I screwed up some calibrations somewhere.”

“Joker and Tali don’t yell about calibrations. That would be Garrus,” she’d replied, a grin playing at her lips, though she tried to keep her face straight.

“All right, so Garrus would be yelling at me,” he’d said, leaning closer to her. “And he’d start a mutiny in, uh, above five minutes trying to get you back in charge.” He kissed the tip of her nose. “Besides, you were a Spectre first, and I can’t imagine the Normandy without you on it.” She rolled her eyes at him, but the grin had become a full-fledged one.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure Javik might try and push you out the airlock after thirty seconds,” she’d said.

“Or Liara might pull me into a singularity until she gets you back,” he’d chuckled.

“Or Traynor might hold you hostage with her toothbrush,” she’d added. She chuckled too, before pulling his arm around her shoulders and snuggling up close to him. “All right, Major. So it’s settled. The Normandy’s mine, and if you want it, then you have to go ask Cerberus to build you the SR-3.” He laughed again and kissed the top of her forehead, glad that they had that issue settled.

The Normandy was Shepard’s, a pair that seemed as inseparable as Tali and her helmet, or Garrus and his visor. It was like a match made in heaven.

But now she wasn’t here, and as the highest-ranking member on the ship, Major Kaidan Alenko was now the commanding officer of the Normandy. No matter how many times the crew reassured him that he would do fine and they trusted his decisions, no matter how many times he reassured _himself_ that he would do fine and the crew trusted his decisions, everything about it felt incredibly _wrong_.

It seemed the Normandy agreed with him, having fried her systems when she crash-landed, taking EDI down with her. Kaidan and Garrus had taken EDI into the AI core, Joker tailing them with his head bowed. Kaidan laid EDI down gently on the cot; Garrus slid a pillow under her head and pulled a small cotton blanket over her. In the dimly lit AI core, she looked like a picture from a storybook: maybe Snow White or Sleeping Beauty.

Joker gently pushed past Kaidan and Garrus, before kneeling in front of EDI’s cot and grabbing her hand. Kaidan and Garrus turned to leave and give them some privacy, before Joker spoke.

“It was the Crucible,” he said. Kaidan and Garrus turned back to Joker. His eyes were red and puffy, and his voice cracked as he spoke. “When that blast went off and hit the ship, that’s when EDI went offline.”

“You don’t know that,” Garrus said. “It could have been from the Reapers.”

“Garrus, we saw that blast go off, and it didn’t come from the Reapers,” Joker said. “It was from the Crucible. And—and whatever Shepard did, it didn’t just stop the Reapers. It went after Reaper tech too.” Kaidan let Joker’s words roll around in his brain like marbles. _Went after Reaper tech too…_ No. No, Shepard was still organic. EDI, as lifelike as she was, was still completely synthetic. Shepard had implants, yeah, but she could…Cerberus didn’t get all of their Reaper tech until after Shepard found the human Reaper…she said she’d wait for him, and she wouldn’t willingly go into a situation where she’d get herself killed again…whatever the Crucible did, it _couldn’t_ do it to Shepard…

Could it?

He couldn’t lose her again.

Garrus glanced over at Kaidan and then back at Joker. “We need to see where we landed,” he said firmly. “Joker, did we get any rough coordinates as to where we are?”

“I was trying to hit the Utopia system,” Joker said, his attention completely on EDI again. “Trying to hit Eden Prime. Normandy was overloading pretty badly though. I mighta…mighta missed…”

“Then we need to double check outside,” Garrus said. “Of course, we need to see what our commanding officer says,” he added, giving Kaidan a nudge.

“I—yeah,” Kaidan said. He put his hand on Joker’s shoulder. “Come on, Joker. Let’s check it out.” He offered his hand to help Joker up, and Joker took it. Garrus nodded at the two of them before slipping away into the battery. Joker pushed his cap further down onto his forehead and didn’t give Chakwas anything more than a slight nod as they passed her, but he followed Kaidan into the elevator and up into the CIC.

“Of all the things that still work,” Joker grumbled. Kaidan wasn’t sure if Joker wanted him to laugh or keep his mouth shut. Kaidan went for the latter option.

The doors opened. Traynor turned around and ran over to Kaidan, biting her lip.

“Still no luck getting the comms up?” Kaidan asked as the three of them walked over to the airlock.

“No,” Traynor admitted. “I’ve tried every channel, every frequency, every relay, and I haven’t even gotten static. It’s like they’ve never existed at all.”

“We’ll get it fixed,” Kaidan soothed her. “We’ll use the elevator’s power if we have to.” He grabbed two atmosphere masks and tossed one to Joker before putting the other on himself. He opened the first airlock door and motioned Joker through.

“Is he all right?” Traynor asked delicately.

“I’ll be fine,” Joker called back.

“Can you call everyone to the briefing room?” Kaidan asked her. “I’m sure everyone has something to report.” Traynor nodded, and Kaidan finally let the door close behind him. Joker already opened the second door, letting in bright sunlight and a wave of humid air. Kaidan pulled out his omni-tool and walked to the doorway with him. He scanned the air outside the ship and waited as the tool buzzed and chirped as it analyzed the data.

“It has plants out here,” Joker said. He glanced at Kaidan. “I don’t know about you, Kaidan, but I think we should be good with taking the masks off. Unless the omni-tool’s telling us that the air’s filled with poison or something.” Kaidan shook his head.

“It says the air is breathable,” Kaidan replied.

“Good,” Joker said. He pulled off his mask and climbed further out of the ship. Kaidan followed, taking off his own mask. The air felt like he was drowning in soup. He wiped a few droplets of sweat off his brow and surveyed his surroundings. They were surrounded by trees, with a few mountains and cliffs dotting the skyline in the distance as if they were an afterthought. Kaidan could hear the faint roar of waterfalls. Their whole surrounding was bright, filled with yellows and greens like a child’s crayon drawing.

Kaidan and Joker exchanged looks with each other.

“Eden Prime hasn’t been colonized completely,” Kaidan said.

“So I landed in the right planet and system, but not in a location we wanted to be,” Joker said. “Got it.”

“We have breathable air and a general idea as to where we are,” Kaidan said sharply. “Joker, that’s a great start.”

“Well, our commanding officer didn’t get spaced the second time I broke the Normandy,” Joker said. “So I’m pretty sure I was already off to a great start.” Kaidan raised his eyebrows. “That…was a joke.”

“Right,” Kaidan said. He took one last look at the planet before turning back to the ship. “Come on. Let’s head to the briefing room.”

* * *

 

“All right,” Kaidan said, laying his palms flat on the table and looking at the crew around him. He hadn’t called everyone to the meeting, just the “main squad” as James so kindly put it: Adams, Daniels, Donnelly, Chakwas, Cortez, James, Traynor, Liara, Tali, Garrus, Joker, and himself. “The atmosphere is breathable, and there’s fresh water if we need it. It’s a little humid, but heat shouldn’t kill anyone. Adams, how does engineering look?”

“Life support is still online,” Adams said. “Then again, life support on any ship always has multiple back-up generators powered by different sources of energy in case of a power failure. For the actual main power core, well, that’s a little harder to fix. It’s like…it completely burned out down there, Major. We don’t know what happened.

“It wasn’t Joker’s fault,” Adams added hastily, glimpsing at Joker’s downtrodden face. “We think it was something to do with the blast that the Crucible let off. Whatever it is, we can fix it. We should have enough intact pieces from non-essential equipment that we can use on the Normandy’s main core and power cells.”

“James and I can help with that,” Cortez cut in. “We can strip down the shuttles, see if there’s any compatible parts on them.”

“You’re stripping down your babies, Esteban?” James sputtered.

“If it gets the Normandy working again, then I’ll do it,” Cortez said.

“Okay,” Kaidan said. “So we have a plan for fixing the ship. What about supplies?”

“I did a supply check with Liara,” Chakwas said. “I should have enough medical supplies to last us for about five months Kaidan, plus there’s enough medi-gel and medi-kits scattered throughout the ship that we can use for minor ailments. Regarding food, all Alliance ships are designed to have a stockpile of about a year’s worth of rations.”

“What about dextro-food?” Kaidan asked, nodding at Tali and Garrus.

“Garrus and I will be fine,” Tali said. “We have enough supplies to last for about six months, plus quarians are trained on how to modify food in emergency situations.”

“I was also able to find some old supply maps for Eden Prime,” Liara added, using her omni-tool to transmit one. She pressed a few buttons, and red and blue dots began littering the map. “Once the Normandy is up and running again, we can use these hubs to restock. The red ones are dextro-hubs, while the blues are human bases.” She clicked the map off again.

“All right,” Kaidan said. He let out a sigh and rubbed his temple. There was a deep throbbing behind his eyes, like someone had hit him fifty times with a hammer. Still, it felt good to know that the crew wasn’t going to starve, and that the Normandy did have options for getting patched up. He looked up at Traynor. “What about the comms system? Did we find out anything new there?”

“Actually, yes,” Traynor said. “But…I’m not sure if it’s actually good news. I did a test run from my terminal into the war-room while you were outside—I used my toothbrush as the test link—and it seems that the problem with the communications isn’t with the ship. It’s...it’s something else.”

“Something off-world?” Kaidan prompted her.

“Maybe. It’s still…so hard to say.” Traynor struggled to find the words. “If…if EDI was still active, then she could run diagnostics, but…” She bit her lip. “It’s so hard to say,” she repeated lamely.

“I’ll help you in the meantime, Specialist,” Liara said. Traynor smiled shyly at her before turning her attention back to the meeting.

“I might know a way to get EDI back online,” Tali said. The whole crew turned to her, and Joker actually looked at her properly instead of hiding his face behind his hat. “It will take some time though, and I think the Normandy should take priority.”

“We’d get the ship fixed a lot faster if EDI was up-and-running,” Garrus pointed out.

“Aye, we would,” Donnelly said. “But we need some of Tali’s skills down in engineering, Garrus. Unless you’re willing to go climbing round maintenance shafts to put wires back into place?”

“Kenneth, you know I can do that,” Daniels said.

“Yeah, but if you did I might end up getting a tad distracted.”

Kaidan raised his hands. “We’ve got a lot of work in front of us,” he said. “Garrus is right, we would get the ship running a lot faster with EDI back online. But we’d also get the ship back running if everyone’s hands are on deck. Cortez, would you be able to show the crew how to strip the parts from the shuttle?”

“It’d take no time at all,” Cortez said.

“And Tali, you know which crew members would be good at engineering?”

“Of course I do,” Tali said. “Anyone who has a tech background can help. Of course, for some of the trickier pieces, I might need to go down and help, but there’s no reason Adams, Donnelly, and Daniels couldn’t handle that department on their own.”

“Good,” Kaidan said. “Then you can focus work on EDI.”

“Understood,” Tali said.

“I’ll come up with a rations list, Kaidan,” Chakwas said.

“And James and I can lead any scavenging trips,” Garrus said.

“Hell yeah! You and me, Scars, we’re gonna be a dream team!” James yelled.

“…Hopefully they won’t be needed very often.”

“All right,” Kaidan said again. The throbbing behind his eyes was getting worse, and he was beginning to see the light splinter around him, creating little black flecks in his vision. He wasn’t sure if it was an implant migraine or a stress-related one. “Find the best people for your teams, and get started. Dismissed.”

* * *

 

She found him in his dreams that night.

He was standing in a park, staring at London’s skyline—it felt too artificial, like a picture in an old textbook—when she wrapped her arms around his waist. He reached out and pulled her head to his shoulders, before stroking her jawline, taking in every angle, before putting his hand over hers.

“So, London,” he said. “You ever wanted to take a vacation here, Shepard?”

“I spent my life in the colonies, Kaidan,” she said, resting her head in the crook of his neck. “I want to see all the cities on Earth.” Is this how Shepard actually spoke to him? Did it _matter_?

“No,” she answered. She let go of his waist and turned him around. “It doesn’t matter, Kaidan.” Every piece of her was still the same—the bright red hair, the green eyes, the straight nose, the freckles that splashed her cheeks—but it was like someone turned the brightness up in her. The hair was almost crimson, her eyes were like pieces of jade, and every inch of her skin seemed to glow. She leaned in for a kiss, but he turned his head away.

“What?” she asked, laying her fingertips on his cheek. “Kaidan, I’m still _me_. You know I said I’d be waiting for you.”

“I know,” he mumbled, like a five-year-old who just got scolded by his mother. “It’s just…” _Just how do I know…_ Why couldn’t he finish his own thoughts? What was he so afraid of?

“Look at me, Kaidan. You _know_ I’m real,” she whispered. God, he wanted her. He wanted her so badly. “Just kiss me, and we’ll be all right. Everything will be all right.” She leaned in again, and this time Kaidan kissed her.

“I missed you,” he whispered in between each kiss. “I missed you, I love you, God, _Shepard—_ ”

He felt sure that she was going to answer him, but before she did, an earsplitting bellow suddenly shot through the air and Shepard pulled away. He tried to grab her hand, but as he did, he saw Husks and Marauders suddenly running towards her.

“ _Shepard!_ ” Kaidan screamed, but it felt like he was running in slow-motion. All he could was watch her charge right into the creatures. The instant she did, a bright light flashed, knocking Kaidan off his feet and onto the ground. He stood up and saw a battlefield filled with corpses, with Shepard’s body right in the middle of it.

When he woke up, he found dried tears staining his cheeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Damn, this chapter was hard to write. I revised it like three times, and I'm still not completely happy with it. Anyway, I wanted to give you all a little bit of the Kaidan/Shepard relationship and how her disappearance might be affecting him. Also, wanted to give everyone an update as to how the Normandy crew was doing! Thanks for reading everything so far, guys!


	4. Three

It was soothing to see that this project was like the Lazarus Project. Of course, the guidelines and steps this time were simpler but the two’s commonalities made Miranda feel more confident as she worked.  It made her feel even more confident that she didn’t have a doctor glancing over her shoulders every five minutes, second-guessing every decision she made. No, for the most part Miranda worked in complete privacy, only calling in assistance when Shepard needed surgery.

For the most part. The doctors stayed away, but the visitors certainly didn’t.

Some of Jack’s students had already been discharged, but at least half of them still needed to remain in the hospital for further treatment. As a result, Jack took to sticking her head round after she visited her students.

“Jack, you do realize that I’m actually trying to work here?” Miranda said one evening. It had been two weeks since Hackett hired her, and she felt pleased with the progress Shepard made. The burns were mostly superficial, and while Miranda felt certain they would leave some scarring, it wouldn’t be debilitating. The wound on the left side of Shepard’s torso still needed regular dressing, but it hadn’t showed any signs of infection or major damage. Her lung puncture was healing nicely as well, and they’d been able to switch her to an oxygen mask instead of full intubation. The only problem seemed to be her _brain_ …

Jack shrugged, offering Miranda a paper cup of tea from the canteen. “Yeah, I know. But I’m currently out of commission until the kids are all back on their feet, so what else am I supposed to do?” She took a slurp of her energy drink. Miranda rolled her eyes.

“You can learn other skills,” Miranda said. “And I know most of those tattoos are self-inflicted. You could open a tattoo parlor in the meantime.” Jack laughed before downing the rest of her drink in two seconds flat.

“Why? Want to be my first customer, princess?” Jack said. “How about a nice Cerberus symbol on your—”

“Maybe you’re good at something else,” Miranda said quickly. Jack laughed again before punching Miranda on the shoulder. Miranda shot her a quick smile before turning her attention back to her datapad. Jack walked over to the window to Shepard’s hospital room.

“She’s doing as well as she can, considering the circumstances,” Miranda said, not turning around and answering the question that was playing in Jack’s mind.

“She wasn’t this bad when you guys dug her up, right?” Jack asked. Miranda glanced over at Jack. Jack was still looking through the window, but she’d crumpled her can in her hand and ruptured it. Miranda turned off her datapad and then stood next to her.

"When we got her, we couldn’t tell if she was a man or a woman,” Miranda said. “A lot of her gear was infused onto her body, and—”

“So she’s not as fucked up,” Jack said flatly.

“No,” Miranda said. “She’s not.” She wondered if she should something nice for Jack—perhaps give her a shoulder pat or a hand squeeze—when Jack suddenly stepped away.

“Gotta go see the kids one more time before visiting hours are up,” Jack said. She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. Miranda saw that Jack’s jaw was slightly more rigid than usual. Her voice sounded thicker as well. “See you around, princess.”

“Jack—” Miranda began but Jack had already walked down the hallway and turned the corner. Miranda sighed, before taking a sip of her tea and heading back into Shepard’s room.

* * *

 

There were lots of visitors to Shepard’s room in that month. Miranda never saw Kasumi in-person, but there would be little hints that she’d stopped by whenever Miranda left the room: once there was a teddy bear stuck at the end of Shepard’s bed; another time, an abstract painting hanging on the wall that said, “Get well soon, Shep!” When Miranda scanned it with an omni-tool, she saw that it was an elcor creation, a piece that had been declared stolen just before the war began. Miranda considered calling the police, but instead ended up taking the painting home to her apartment. Shepard would probably get a laugh out of it, she decided, before they handed it in.

Zaeed came once, carrying a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates. Miranda chuckled when she saw him. “I didn’t think you were the romantic type, Zaeed,” Miranda said as the two of them shook hands. “And I don’t think Shepard’s ready to eat solid foods yet.”

"I couldn’t damn well smuggle her in a gun now, could I?” Zaeed said. “Figured it was the next best thing. These are damn good chocolates, and the wine’s from 2122.”

“How do you know the chocolates are damn good?” Miranda said.

“Because I had to try a couple to make sure they weren’t poisoned!” Zaeed said. He handed Miranda the box and the bottle, before taking the seat next to Shepard’s bed. He put his arms behind his head and crossed his legs.

“How did you even get these anyway?” Miranda asked, putting the bottle down on the floor next to Zaeed and plucking a raspberry cream chocolate from the box. “You were on the Citadel, weren’t you?”

“Not all of the Citadel was destroyed,” Zaeed said. “Most of the Outer Wards did get pretty fucked over, and there were apparently a couple of attacks on the Presidium, but most people fled to the Inner Wards when the Reapers decided to bloody drag us across the galaxy. And that isn’t bloody alien swill: that is pure Earth chocolate. Speaking of which, the marzipan ones are pretty good. Toss me one, will you?”

“I thought we were supposed to be saving these,” Miranda said, but she obliged.

“There’s a good girl,” Zaeed said, popping the chocolate in his mouth. He nodded at Shepard. “How’s my favourite commander doing? She all right?”

“As all right as she can be, Zaeed,” Miranda said. She closed the lid on the chocolate box and put it on the floor too.

“She’ll get up eventually,” Zaeed said. “When I got shot in the head, doctors thought I was done for. Said I’d be in a coma for the rest of my life. Shows how much those bastards know.” He chuckled. “Rage ain’t just an anesthetic, it’s a hell of a stimulant.”

“I don’t think rage is going to help,” Miranda said.

“You don’t think she’s not gonna be pissed that the Reapers nearly destroyed Earth and every fucking planet in the galaxy? Nah. She’s gonna be pissed when she wakes up,” Zaeed said. “Now if you need a merc to help discharge her early, then I might be available..."

Garrus and Tali were still off the grid, which left Miranda thoroughly unsurprised. All the Normandy crew would be banging down the hospital door if they were still on Earth, and none of the alien crew would even dream of going off-world until they saw Shepard wake up. She hoped that wherever they were, they’d be back on Earth by the time Shepard woke up. It stung, but they’d been with Shepard since the beginning. And as much as Shepard cared for Miranda, it would be stupid to assume that Shepard wouldn’t be disappointed when she only saw Miranda, and none of the rest of her crew.

Jacob and Grunt were off-world too, but at least Miranda had spoken to _Jacob_. She didn’t expect anything from Grunt—the krogan quickly dispatched themselves the second the last Reaper fell—but Jacob was stationed on a ship near the ruins of the Arcturus Station, part of a team that was supposed to rebuild it

“But you don’t know how to build anything, Jacob,” Miranda said, two days after Zaeed visited. “How are you supposed to help rebuild an entire space station?”

“By not being part of the building team,” Jacob answered. The connection was full of static, but Miranda could still here Jacob's voice above it. “I’m there to help guard the workers, prevent any attacks and fights from outsiders.”

“Ah, Jacob. And here I thought you left your merc days behind you,” Miranda said.

“I’m still serving as a member of the Alliance,” Jacob countered. “Plus they want to make Arcturus a military outpost this time, instead of being a hybrid between a base and civilian housing. They’re going to heavily reinforce it and everything.”

“What else could be out there besides the Reapers?”

“No idea,” Jacob said. “But…doesn’t it make you feel better at night knowing that we have a major base against outside attacks?”

“I suppose,” Miranda said, knowing that pointing out Arcturus Station's quick destruction during the Reaper invasion would _not_ be a good idea. “But I’ve got to run, Jacob. Shepard isn’t going to make a full recovery without me. Tell Brynn I said hello and that I hope everything’s going well with the baby.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Miranda,” Jacob said, laughing. “And Brynn…Brynn will be fine. Let me know when Shepard wakes up. Maybe I’ll treat us all to a few drinks. Just like old times.” Miranda smiled wanly before she disconnected. She liked Jacob—he was a good soldier, and she knew that if she spent more time with him, he’d be a good friend—but their lives were taking different routes. He seemed intent on forgetting about the Normandy and his time spent on it. She, on the other hand, had grown fond of some of the crew members. But then again, did she really have a choice in that fondness? Miranda didn’t suppose she did. Before the Normandy, the only other person she cared about was Oriana. Now…well. It felt odd, and it was more than a little distracting, but she liked those unexpected visits from her former crew-mates. She hadn’t realized how much she missed them.

The last person to visit was Samara. She came in late one night, exactly a month after Miranda started working on Shepard. After Miranda spoke to Jacob, she found herself in the hospital nearly twenty-four-seven, scanning Shepard’s body this way and that, trying to find some explanation as to why Shepard wasn’t waking up. Her abdomen wound had started closing up, her lung puncture was nearly healed, and her scars had faded, so it couldn’t have been from body trauma. The brain scans showed no major damage. No, the implants were the issue. They hadn’t _failed_ : they were still working, keeping Shepard’s heart beating and her lungs full of oxygen. But they weren’t behaving properly either: if they were, Shepard would have been awake the second most of her major injuries were treated.

So Miranda slaved away in Shepard’s hospital room, running every test under the sun and still coming up empty-handed. She couldn’t even ask the doctors for help: they were her implants, her creation, and if she asked the medical staff for help, they wouldn’t have a clue as to how they could help. It all left Miranda tired and frustrated…and _scared_.

"Is that going to be it then, Shepard?” Miranda said the night Samara arrived, throwing her hands up in the air. She’d run another round of tests, trying to see if electro-shock therapy could get Shepard up, but still nothing. It was a long shot, anyway—electro-shock therapy stopped being used at all, even for mental illnesses, at some point in the 2080s—but after hitting every single wall in the maze, Miranda was fast running out of ideas. “Are you just going to lie there for the rest of your life?”

“That would be very unlike Shepard to do so,” Samara said, and Miranda jumped and turned around. “My apologies, Miranda. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“Don’t worry about it, Samara,” Miranda said, putting the paperwork away and turning the lights up in the room ever so slightly. “But what are you doing here? Visitor’s hours ended a while ago.”

“I had thought you had left already,” Samara said. “I don’t know Earth time that well, but I believe twelve o’clock at night is rather late for humans.”

“Not just here in the hospital,” Miranda said. “But here on Earth. I thought you’d have returned to Thessia by now.”

“I thought so as well,” Samara said, crossing her hands behind her back and walking slowly towards Shepard’s bed. “But it seems that the relay damage has delayed my leave. And after I heard that Shepard was the one who set off the Crucible, I felt that I needed to see that she was all right.”

“I see,” Miranda said.

“But you didn’t answer my question,” Samara said.

“What question?”

“Why you’re still here instead of resting,” Samara said. “When I received the message about Shepard from Kasumi, I wanted to see her as soon as I was able. Kasumi said that you usually went home at eleven o’clock.”

“That’s what I usually do,” Miranda said, making a mental note to check the room to make sure Kasumi hadn’t cloaked herself without Miranda’s knowledge, “but…it’s funny, but as Shepard’s injuries have healed, I haven’t been as home as often as I should.”

“I see,” Samara said. Miranda felt her insides squirm. As much as she respected Samara, there was something about her that made Miranda nervous. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that Samara could kill Miranda for breaking asari law without any consequences, or perhaps it was because Samara’s eyes were so piercingly, unnaturally blue, almost the exact shade of her skin. Miranda wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to find out.

“You’ve done an excellent job with her,” Samara continued, gazing at Shepard. “I believe Shepard would be pleased to know that her friend is taking such care of her.”

“I’ve had practice,” Miranda said simply.

“Shepard mentioned you being the one who brought her back to life,” Samara said. “I imagine this project is easier for you.”

“It would be even easier if Shepard actually woke up,” Miranda said. She started pacing, twisting her fingers. Samara’s eyes followed her, but she stayed by the bed.

“It’s…” Miranda began, but then trailed off. How could she describe it? It wasn’t a coma, but it couldn’t be sleep either. A vegetative state? Was that what Shepard was going to be? Alive, but only by the loosest definition of the word?

“She’s not…I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Miranda finally got out. “She didn’t score terribly on the Glasgow scale, but she didn’t score well either. But the doctors ran so many scans on her that they were able to rule out any sort of brain damage. It must be the implants that are the issue, but I don’t know what’s the matter with them.

“I’m the one who designed the implants, so why don’t I know what’s wrong? They want me to bring Shepard back again, but what if the first time was a fluke? What if she’s supposed to stay dead this time? I know I’m doing everything right, but the implants were supposed to wake her up the second her injuries started healing!” Miranda kept burbling on, coming up with different theories—had Wilson interfered during the Lazarus Project? Did the Illusive Man have some part in this? Did the _Alliance?_ —when suddenly, Samara grabbed Miranda’s hands. Miranda stopped mid-sentence, finding herself face-to-face with Samara’s piercing eyes.

“Tell me, Miranda, when was the last time you slept?” Samara prodded. There was something almost motherly and tender in her tone that nearly made Miranda cry. Samara killed hundreds, if not thousands of people for the sake of preserving ancient justice, but Miranda had forgotten that Samara had been a mother before all of that.

“Do you want the last time I actually slept, or the last time I slept well?” Miranda asked. Samara gave her a sad little smile.

“Both,” she replied.

“Then I’m fairly certain you won’t like the answer for either of them.”

“Then perhaps you should get some rest,” Samara replied. “You’ll only injure yourself if you keep working like this.”

“I would,” Miranda said, letting go of Samara’s hands and stepping away. “But I can’t rest until I know Shepard will be all right.”

“You mean until she wakes up,” Samara said. She took a step closer to Miranda, closing the distance that Miranda created. “Tell me, Miranda: did you work yourself this hard when you were rebuilding Shepard?” Miranda paused. Truth be told, she had worked herself that hard in the beginning. She overworked herself in the three months before Shepard woke up as well, but she had no choice that time: she couldn’t risk Wilson waking her up again and nearly killing her. But those months in-between, when it was clear Shepard was healing and stable, she finally let herself relax. How could she not? Shepard would have been fine: the implants were placed and working well. But this was different: the implants were working, but as if they were at minimal power.

“If you’re worried about doctors interfering, you have no need to,” Samara said. “I will watch over Shepard until you return.”

“But what if something happens when I’m not here?” Miranda asked, looking down at Shepard. She looked peaceful, her red hair fanned out on her pillow, her breathing even and regular, but she kept thinking about the implants. What if they failed the second she stepped out of the hospital? If she didn’t get back quickly enough, there would be no chance of saving Shepard. All her hard work would be for nothing.

“You cannot keep thinking of the possibilities that something will go wrong,” Samara said. “Something could have gone wrong this past month, yet Shepard has remained stable. She is no danger if you step away for one night.”

“But what if it does?” Miranda said. “I know it’s stupid that I can’t trust my own handiwork, but—“

“Miranda,” Samara said. She placed her hand over Miranda’s again and rubbed her thumb over Miranda’s knuckles. “You have let yourself become overtired and over-paranoid. Once you have rested, you will be able to think clearly. Besides,” Samara said with another small smile, “even genetically-engineered humans need to get some sleep.” Miranda stepped away again and gave one last worrying look at Shepard. She took a deep breath.

“You promise to let me know in case anything bad happens?” Miranda asked. She hated how high and pleading her voice sounded—almost childlike—but she knew that Samara wasn’t going to let Miranda stay.

“You have my promise,” Samara said, walking to the chair and sitting on it in the lotus position. “Now go. Shepard will be safe under my watch.” Samara closed her eyes and lit up the dim room with her biotics. Miranda gave one last look at both of them before slowly walking out.

As she walked down the hallway and outside into the cool London air, it occurred to Miranda that for the first time in a month, it felt like a weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She inhaled sharply, taking in the smell of rain on concrete and the sharp scent of the takeaway places around her, before hailing a taxi to take her back to her apartment. She’d scarcely been in it since Hackett gave her the job.

She barely made it onto the couch before collapsing on the lopsided cushions and falling into a deep, dreamless sleep.

She didn’t wake up until evening the next day. Bleary-eyed, Miranda stretched and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms. The clock said six twenty-three. Miranda groaned. She ran her fingers through her hair and popped a few peppermints in her mouth before sprinting out of her apartment and back to the hospital.

She didn’t know why she rushed back. Shepard was still unconscious, her various monitors providing a beeping harmony in the background. Samara, by the looks of it, hadn’t moved either, still in the same position and chair she’d been in when Miranda left. Samara opened her eyes when she heard the door open.

“You should have phoned me when I didn’t turn up this morning,” Miranda said, running her omni-tool over Shepard’s body and checking all her vitals.

“I felt no need to,” Samara said. “Nothing about Shepard’s condition changed while you were away, and you needed the rest.” Miranda sighed. Samara was right on both counts.

Well, _nearly_ right.

“Her implants are becoming more active,” Miranda said. She turned around to face Samara. “If they’re becoming more active, it means that they’re getting ready for when she’s conscious again.”

“I see,” Samara said. “Then the rest turned out to be good after all?”

"I…yes, that’s right,” Miranda said, turning around and facing her. “I suppose that running all those tests might have interfered with the implants.”

“Perhaps,” Samara said. “Or you two needed to spend some time apart.”

“A doctor and a patient spending time apart?” Miranda said. She crossed her arms as a smile tugged at her mouth.

“I remember my daughters fighting with each other about such trivial things,” Samara said. “I often needed to separate them before they would apologize to each other.”

Miranda chuckled. “I see,” she said. Samara nodded at her.

“I should take my leave now, Miranda,” Samara said. She gave her a pat on the shoulder before walking to the door. “I hope I see you again before I return to Thessia.”

"Same to you,” Miranda said. “And maybe I should tell Kasumi to send you in whenever I need to take a break.” A small smile flickered across Samara’s lips.

“Yes, that would be an excellent idea,” Samara said. “I will await her message. But in the meantime…good-bye, Miranda.” Miranda gave Samara a nod and watched the door close behind her. She turned back around to Shepard, pulling out her omni-tool to check her vitals again. As she walked over to Shepard’s head, she saw her eyelids begin to flutter and she let out a sharp breath.

Miranda’s jaw dropped.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy it's another Miranda chapter. Thanks for reading so far guys! Hope you've enjoyed it!


	5. Four

The optimism from the first meeting faded away around three days in. It wasn’t anyone’s fault, Kaidan knew that: it came from the fact that getting the ship put back together wasn’t going to be as easy as anyone thought. The crew was frustrated and tired, and under normal circumstances, that would be enough to make anyone snap. Trying to rebuild a ship in the middle of nowhere? Kaidan was surprised the crew lasted for one day, let alone three.

Campbell and Westmoreland started it first. The two privates had been stripping the armoring from one of the shuttles when Westmoreland pulled one of the pieces off. She pulled a little too hard, and Campbell nearly got hit in the face. In return, Campbell dropped a drill on Westmoreland’s foot—on purpose.

“Now that was a fight, let me tell you, L2,” James said a few hours later after Kaidan had reassigned Campbell to engineering and Westmoreland to resource management. He started passing the power cells to Kaidan. Kaidan began sorting out which pieces the Normandy could use and which ones it couldn’t. “Those two _chicas_ were on the ground in five minutes, practically tearing each other’s hair out.”

“Mm-hmm,” Kaidan said. “I also seem to remember that Cortez was the one who paged me to the armory, because you were filming them.”

“Just wanted to see how their combat training was doing.”

“Really. And I’m sure you want to promote them for N7 training.” James laughed and slapped Kaidan on the shoulder.

Traynor and Liara struggled too. “I don’t understand,” Liara said to Kaidan a week and a half after they crash-landed. “We’ve tried practically every single solution. We’ve taken wires from the shuttles and other areas from the Normandy, we’ve checked the satellites, we’ve even done something as immature as turning the power on and off again. And yet, nothing is turning up. We haven’t been able to get any signal from any ships in Council space, let alone the Alliance.”

“Liara, you and Traynor are doing great,” Kaidan said, examining their handiwork. He tapped on one of the screens and watched it turn on. He tapped on the bright orange screen, but it didn’t show any icons or notifications. He gave the screen one more tap before turning it off and crouching down next to Traynor underneath the terminals. She was running a tool over some wires, breaking some of them and then tying the broken wires with a different half. Each time she broke a new one, a light blue glow lit up her determined face. “What tool are you using?” Kaidan asked as Traynor crawled forward to a new set of wires.

“Just my toothbrush,” Traynor replied. “I’m trying to see if changing the wire connections will make any difference. We might have accidentally mis-paired some of the wires when we were combining them with the shuttle pieces. Or, well, _I_ might have. Liara’s an absolute whiz at this—”

“I assure you, Specialist, it is entirely possible I made some mistakes as well,” Liara said, leaning down to Kaidan and Traynor. “I am an archaeologist, not a technical genius.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Kaidan said, resting his hand on the edge of the table to keep his balance, “I think being the Shadow Broker is the same thing as being a technical genius.”

“Very funny,” Liara said. Kaidan glanced over his shoulder. Liara was shaking her head but she was smiling too. “If being the Shadow Broker led me to knowing how to fix computers and comm devices, I’m fairly certain we could have reached the Andromeda Galaxy by this point.”

“All right,” Kaidan said, raising his hands in surrender before standing up. Liara had pulled open a datapad, but she looked up as she realized Kaidan was leaving.

“Kaidan,” Liara said. “If you find him, can you send Javik in here, please?”

“What for?” Kaidan asked. “I thought we assigned him to engineering.”

“Don’t tell me you’re working on your book _now_ , Liara!” Traynor called.

“No, no, it’s not that,” Liara said. She leaned in towards Kaidan and lowered her voice. “None of us have seen him in days. I checked Port Cargo, I asked Donnelly and Daniels if they’ve seen him and they said no. I’m sure it’s because the specialist and I have been so busy working on the communications system, but...” Liara’s voice trailed off. “I’m worried that he might have used his memory shard and…and…”

“Hey,” Kaidan said gently, squeezing Liara’s shoulder. “He wouldn’t have done that. He would have wanted to see what the galaxy was like without Reapers, remember? I’ll send him down here when I find him, just so you can see that he’s safe.” Liara nodded, her shoulders relaxing in relief.

“Thank you, Kaidan,” she said. Kaidan gave her shoulder another squeeze before letting go. Liara squatted down next to Traynor.

* * *

 

Kaidan should’ve realized that Javik had been missing earlier, but he’d been too wrapped up in the ship’s problems to notice his disappearance. Kaidan had been flitting from one place to the next, from helping the engineers repair the engine, to showing Ensign Copeland the proper way to remove fuel cells, to assuring Chakwas that no, his migraines weren’t getting worse despite all the stress he was putting himself under. Kaidan didn’t actually see Javik until nearly three weeks in. Kaidan wasn’t even looking for Javik; he’d been looking for _Joker_. He found them both in Port Observation, Joker nursing a purple drink, Javik drinking straight from the bottle.

“I assure you, you will get over her eventually,” Javik said as Kaidan walked in. “She was not a real creature. She was just a toy that the Reapers made. She could not feel emotions the way organics do.” Joker mumbled something, but Kaidan was too far away to hear it. “There will be organics like you. It is better for organics to be with their own kind. Even the quarian and the turian—their relationship will end eventually. They will realize that they need to be with their own people.” Javik took a swig from the bottle as Kaidan rolled his eyes and stepped forward, so that the two men could properly see him.

“Ah, the human biotic,” Javik said. He fixed his four eyes on Kaidan. “And to what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Liara’s looking for you,” Kaidan said. He tried to keep his voice even, but he felt anger burning at the back of his throat. “What are you doing in here, Javik? Nobody’s seen you for three weeks.”

“I was examining the commander’s star charts in her quarters for you,” Javik replied. “You humans are so very predictable. Whenever you weren’t in the quarters, I was in there. You need the best route back to your home planet, and I was able to find one.”

“Wait—how did you even get into the captain’s quarters?” Kaidan asked.

“There is no machine blocking me from entering now,” Javik said. “Anyone who wants to go in can go in.” Kaidan bit the inside of his cheek to stop his biotics from slamming Javik into the floor. Kaidan had gone into the captain’s quarters multiple times, yes, but it was the closest he could be to Shepard. Even then, it felt like he was seeing her naked whenever he was in there on his own. To think that Javik was in there, sitting in Shepard’s room, going through her drawers and computer to find her star charts…

“I think it’d be best if you go help Liara and Traynor work on the comms system,” Kaidan said with forced evenness. “Or if you helped Garrus with the shield calibrations. We can’t leave if the ship’s going to be torn into a million pieces the second we hit the stratosphere.”

“Very well,” Javik said, putting the bottle back on the counter with a large bang. He stood up, bumping into Kaidan as he went. Kaidan started walking towards Joker before Javik spoke again.

“I am no fool, biotic,” Javik said. “I know you came in here to talk to your pilot, not find me. You wish to provide him comfort about the robot. You think you two share the same situation.” Kaidan took a deep breath. He imagined punching Javik.

“Are you saying it’s not similar?” Kaidan asked. “We both lost someone we love.”

“You fell in love with a human,” Javik said. “The two of you are equal, as you are both flawed. Your pilot fell in love with a synthetic. The two of them could never be the same. She has no flaws.” Kaidan whirled around to face Javik, but Javik already closed the door behind him.

“Asshole,” Kaidan mumbled under his breath before sliding onto the stool next to Joker. He gently slid Joker’s glass away.

“Cutting me off, Major?” Joker said. He rested his head on his hands and stared straight ahead. “I only had, like, one drink. Javik’s the real alcoholic.”

“But if you keep drinking it, how are we going to party when we get the Normandy up-and-running again?” Kaidan asked. Joker gave a little chuckle, but he didn’t look at Kaidan. “What’s wrong?” Kaidan prodded gently.

“It’s…well, it’s EDI,” Joker said. He rubbed his eyes with his knuckles. It made him look like a small child. “Tali said she can get her back online as a VI.” Kaidan paused.

“That’s good though, right?” he asked. Joker snorted.

“Yeah, if you like mindless sex slaves,” he said. “It’d be like having Shepard around, but Cerberus actually putting that control chip in her head. Sure, it might sound and look like the same thing, but if it only answers to one person and loses all traces of her entire personality, then it’s basically a sex-doll, right?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan said. He swallowed. He’d forgotten about the control chip. Shepard told him about it once, after the clone fight. She’d assured him that Cerberus never went through with it, but still, it made him worry.

“But yeah,” Joker said. “Looks like we’re gonna be getting VI EDI for a while.”

“I’m sure Tali will be able to make her a full VI again once we’re on Earth again,” Kaidan said. Joker shook his head. He looked over at Kaidan, and for the first time Kaidan saw how bloodshot his eyes really were.

“No. She can’t,” Joker said flatly. “You think the Alliance is going to be willing to let us build an AI, even if she did help save the galaxy? Or the Council? We just faced down the most fucked-up synthetics ever created, and we’re supposed to go back and be all, ‘Can we rebuild this one? She’s not like other synthetics, we promise!’ just because I want to get laid?”

“Are you forgetting I’m a Spectre?” Kaidan said. “We can rebuild her. I’m not leaving her behind.”

“I think even Spectres are going to have limits, Kaidan,” Joker said. He put his head back on his hands again. “The Council and the Alliance will be thankful that we saved their asses, but there’s no way they’ll be that thankful.”

“Then I’ll go behind their backs if I have to,” Kaidan said stoutly. “You think Shepard would leave EDI behind too?”

“No,” Joker said softly. He blinked rapidly. “At least…like, it’s hard to be around Tali now, you know? ‘Cos she has Garrus and everything. But you…you get it Kaidan, you know?”

“Yeah,” Kaidan said, and he felt the rush of pain again, stabbing his arms and legs, drowning his lungs. Because of course he got it. He didn’t have a choice but to get it.

“Does it get easier?” Joker asked. He bit his lip and blinked rapidly again. “I mean, cos I lost my dad and my sister a little before we lost the commander, and then I lost EDI, and it feels like somebody’s just broken all my limbs and told me to rebuild myself. And sometimes I get up in the morning and I forget what the hell happened, but then it all hits me like I took fifty punches to the head.” Kaidan swallowed again. It felt like he had concrete in his mouth, weighing down his tongue and jaw.

“Sometimes,” he answered. “When I lost Shepard the first time, there were moments that I thought it was just a bad dream. That I could just roll over and she’d be there next to me. But when I looked and saw that she wasn’t there, I just couldn’t handle it. It felt like a piece of me was missing, and I had to keep on going. But then those moments didn’t come as often anymore, and it would…” Kaidan sighed. “It’s really hard to explain, Joker. It really is.”

“You want to know something really fucked up?” Joker said. “I’m so pissed off at them. Like, if my dad and my sister hadn’t lived on Tiptree, if Shepard hadn’t run to the beam and activated the Crucible, if EDI hadn’t been made of Reaper tech, then we wouldn’t be here. Everything would have gone on as normal.”

“Being angry is normal,” Kaidan said. “I was so pissed at Shepard for letting her oxygen leak when I knew that she had no way to stop it.”

“Yeah,” Joker said, sighing. He pulled the drink back from Kaidan. “Humans are pretty fucked up.”

"You said it,” Kaidan said, picking up Javik’s bottle and pouring out a drink for himself.

* * *

 

“Kaidan!” Liara hissed. Kaidan bolted up. He’d been having his first dreamless sleep in a month. He fumbled for the comms device.

"Wha--?” he mumbled as he pressed the button. “It’s too early, Liara—”

“I know,” Liara said. “But you need to come down to the comms room. It’s so—Goddess, I wish I could tell you this over the channel, but you need to hear this in person—”

“I’m coming,” Kaidan mumbled again, staggering out of the bed and down the elevator.

“Major, are you all right?” EDI asked as Kaidan stumbled out of the elevator. “It is nearly one AM Vancouver time, and you are usually asleep.”

“I’m fine, EDI,” Kaidan said. “Go back to sleep mode.” Kaidan shook his head as he walked through the scanner to the war room. Tali had been able to get EDI back online, and EDI had been running diagnostics on the ship, but she seemed more sluggish than before. The crew could only get her to run diagnostics on one area of the ship at a time. It was a major downgrade, but they’d made more repairs in the week that EDI came online than the other three weeks put together. EDI lost all sense of her personality, but at least the Normandy was one step closer to making it home.

Kaidan stepped into the war room. Liara was still fully-dressed, while Traynor had slipped into her pyjamas. The two of them were standing next to the communications room.

“Why all the secrecy?” Kaidan asked as he approached them.

“We wanted you to be the first to hear,” Liara said.

“Well, more like the third at this point,” Traynor said. She rubbed her eyes but gave Kaidan a winning grin. “It’s good news, we promise.”

"You got the comms system back online?” Kaidan said as the three of them stepped inside.

“Not just that,” Traynor said. “But we made contact.”

“It’s a recording,” Liara said. “But it’s better than nothing.” She clicked a button and suddenly a blurry image of Admiral Hackett appeared. He looked tired, the wrinkles on his face deeper than Kaidan ever remembered them being, but there was a glimmer of victory behind his eyes.

“This is Admiral Hackett of the Fifth Fleet,” the recording said. “I am sending this message across all available channels and colonies in hopes of reaching the SSV Normandy. The Reapers are gone and Commander Shepard is still alive. I repeat, Commander Shepard defeated the Reapers and is still alive. Please respond to any Alliance channel as soon as you can, Normandy. Hackett out.” The image of Hackett fizzled out and Kaidan collapsed onto his knees. Traynor finally let out the squeal she’d been holding in, while Liara put her fingers on Kaidan’s shoulder.

“Is it real?” Kaidan finally breathed out.

“Yes,” Liara replied. “I had EDI run diagnostics on it three times before I woke up Traynor and had her check it herself. We can’t send outbound messages yet, but I thought it was important you found out first.” Kaidan closed his eyes. He knew Shepard was going to be injured, but he imagined her looking the same way she did when she defeated Sovereign, limping out of the wreckage with a triumphant grin on her face, her freckles visible even through the dirt on her face. He let out a deep breath that quickly turned into laughter. He pulled Traynor and Liara down with him into a hug.

“We have to let the rest of the crew know,” Kaidan said in between breaths. He opened his eyes and saw that Liara and Traynor were crying, and he felt tears running down his own cheeks. “We have to.”

 “EDI,” Liara said. “Can you wake up the rest of the crew? We have important news that they all need to hear.”

“Of course, Doctor T’Soni.”

“She’s alive,” Kaidan whispered. “She’s alive, she’s alive, she’s _alive_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What's this? Another chapter that was a PITA to write? And it was a Kaidan chapter too (I'm sensing a pattern here). Anyway, next chapter is a Shepard chapter! Hope you guys are enjoying it so far!


	6. Five

The world was too bright. Shepard opened her eyes and immediately squeezed them shut again. She could tell by the gentle beeping surrounding her that she was in a hospital. Judging by the number of tubes piercing her body, plus the cannula shoved up her nose, she was in a pretty bad state.

“You’re alive.” Tentatively, Shepard opened one eye again. It was still blinding, leaving a purple ring and black spots wherever she looked, but she knew she’d heard that voice before. “I told you to die when you were crawling for help.” Shepard winced and tried to sit up, forcing herself up onto her forearms. Bad idea. Not only did the pain suddenly turn itself up to eleven, making her gasp in pain, but all her monitors went from steady beeps to screaming alarms. Shepard fell back, sweating from the effort of sitting up, her teeth ground together to stop herself from screaming. She stared at the ceiling, feeling her head pound and her eardrums explode from the shrill alarms surrounding her. She didn’t know anyone entered the room until she felt a cool, gloved hand on her forehead. Its owner stepped into view and despite the pain, Shepard felt her lips turn up into a smile.

“Miranda,” she gasped out. Miranda gave her a warm smile back.

"We really should stop meeting like this, Shepard,” Miranda said. “Putting you back together has become quite a bad habit.”

“You don’t wanna go for a third round?” Shepard said. She coughed and sputtered after she spoke. Miranda pressed a button to move the bed into a sitting position, before reaching over to a side table and picking up a cup of water. She eased the straw past Shepard’s lips, and rubbed her back until Shepard stopped coughing long enough to take a sip.

“Sorry,” Shepard said.

“You shouldn’t be sorry,” Miranda said, putting the cup back on the side table. “You saved us all.”

“You didn’t save them all,” the other voice said. “You only saved organics, not synthetics.” Shepard winced again and pressed her hand to her forehead.

“Is it your implants?” Miranda asked. “It did take them almost six weeks to get you awake again. I’m sure there might be some side effects.”

“No, it’s not…I was out for six weeks?” Shepard said.

“Technically, you’ve been out for two and a half months,” Miranda corrected. “You didn’t start regaining consciousness _until_ six weeks ago. Before then, you were completely unconscious. I think it’s because the implants went into some sort of hibernation mode while the rest of your body recovered and slowly came back online so that your nervous system wasn’t overloaded.”

“Is that a theory or do you know for sure?” Shepard asked.

“A little bit of both,” Miranda said. She pushed a few strands of Shepard’s hair back. “Your saving grace was that you didn’t look as bad as you did when I rebuilt you for the first time.”

“Oh, yeah?” Shepard said, chuckling and then gasping in pain. “I don’t know, it sure feels as bad as the first time.”

“Only you would have a first time, Shepard,” Miranda said. She gave Shepard another sip of the water before reclining the bed again. “I’d suggest you get some sleep. I’ve had all the Alliance knocking down the door the second there was a slight change in your condition, not to mention Jack’s practically been holding a vigil every night—”

“Didn’t I just wake up?” Shepard said. She tried to sit up again but Miranda put her hands on her shoulders and gently pushed her back down.

“Yes, you did,” Miranda answered. “But they want to get you started on physical therapy as soon as possible—probably tomorrow—plus Hackett and the rest of the Alliance are going to interrogate you as to what happened on the Citadel, no doubt.”

“I see,” Shepard said. She swallowed. “What about the Normandy? They’re all okay, right? Kaidan and Garrus got hit by a Mako on the approach, and—”

“You should rest,” Miranda said, dimming the lights. “It won’t do you any good if you keep stressing like this, Shepard. If you need anything, just hit the call button.”

“Miranda—” Shepard protested, sitting up again, but Miranda already walked out the door. Shepard sighed, easing herself back onto her pillow. Miranda was right. She felt exhausted, and she’d been through enough physical therapy treatments to know that being exhausted was not exactly a benefit. Besides, if Hackett was—

“Your own crew didn’t even visit you,” the voice said. Shepard gasped as she finally made the connection as to who—or what—the voice belonged to.

“I thought you were supposed to be destroyed when the Crucible went off,” Shepard said, gritting her teeth. She was uncomfortable. There was a mass of bandages on her right side, meaning she couldn’t roll over and sleep in the position she wanted. Each time she moved, some part of her body started aching. The constant and burning urge to pee made her pretty certain that she had a catheter. And now she had to deal with the Catalyst.

“I was,” the Catalyst said. “But am I really here? Or are you feeling guilty about what you did?”

“Destroying the Reapers was the best option,” Shepard said.

“But why?”

“Because they were going to kill us!” Shepard said. She heard some of the machines start beeping rapidly again. Shepard swore, before taking several deep breaths and waiting until the machines calmed down with her. “I wasn’t going to let the rest of the galaxy die or get rewritten against their will. You said everyone would be synthesized—would that be husks, too? And brutes and marauders?”

“Of course,” the Catalyst said. “But wouldn’t that be better? With synthesis there would be no suffering, no pain. They would know that they were no longer organics, but they would accept that. Instead, you decided killing synthetics to save yourself was the best option.”

“You said that I’d be destroyed too,” Shepard snarled. “But I survived, so clearly you were wrong somewhere.”

“Because your organic parts must outweigh your synthetic ones,” the Catalyst replied. “But the others—the geth, EDI, Legion—do you think they deserved to die? Did you only destroy the Reapers because the other options ensured your death? You, who faced death so many times, are suddenly afraid of dying?”

“Don’t try and give me the bullshit guilt trip,” Shepard said. “The whole plan was to always destroy the Reapers. It wasn’t to fulfill the Illusive Man's power fantasy or the Reapers' ideal of a perfect life form. It was always to destroy them and you know it.”

“Did you actually gain anything?” the Catalyst snapped back. “You are once again at the will of a woman who saw no use for you beyond her own personal gain. The people you loved and trusted have not even attempted to see you.”

“You’re lying—” Shepard began, but the Catalyst cut her off.

“Am I? Where is Dr. T'Soni? Garrus Vakarian? Major Kaidan Alenko, the man who is supposedly the love of your life? If they cared about you, they would have never left your side.” Shepard squeezed her eyes shut. She knew that this version of the Catalyst wasn’t real—it was just her imagination—but God, why did it sound like the real thing?

“Perhaps it would have been better if you stay dead the first time,” the Catalyst continued. “Or if you died on Akuze. Or if you were captured by the batarians on Mindoir. Because that’s all organics do: serve their own interests, even if others get in the way. They held you up as a savior, but you are not anything special. You followed the exact same pattern that all organics follow, failing to see outside your own flawed bubble. Perhaps if someone else made it to the beam, they would have thought for the good of the many, but instead the flawed organic made it instead, and thought for the needs of the few.”

“I _did_ think for the needs of the many,” Shepard whispered. “I saved every race in the galaxy.”

“Legion had over a thousand units living inside it,” the Catalyst said. “And the Reapers stored countless civilizations. The geth alone very likely had more units inside them than the entire population of the Milky Way. And you let them die.”

“Shut up,” Shepard said, tears squeezing out from behind her lids. She pressed the button Miranda left her frantically. “Shut up, shut up, shut _up._ ”

When Miranda came barging into Shepard's room a few minutes later, she assumed the tears were from pain. Shepard didn’t bother to correct her, feeling relieved that Miranda decided to stick her with a sedative so that she could get some sleep. Still, even as Shepard let herself drift away into a haze, the Catalyst’s words still rattled around her head.

_It would have been better if you'd died._

As harsh and cruel as it was…could it be right?

* * *

 

The physical therapy was torture, as Shepard expected: the doctors noticed that Shepard could sit up without issue, so they started trying to get her standing up and walking. Shepard knew she had to do it (the alternative option of losing her mobility in general was ten million times worse than the pain) but it felt difficult working without the rest of the crew. Garrus and Wrex would have teased her as she stumbled across the room with Liara at her side, trying to help her keep her balance. Tali would have tried to create a walker that moved on its own without Shepard needing to put her body weight on it as James told her a million stories about all the times that he had to use a walker, with nine-hundred and ninety-nine thousand of them turning out to be fake. Joker would have cracked jokes about how Shepard's bones were weaker than the most crippled man in the galaxy, while Javik would have said that the primitives were so weak in this cycle, they hadn’t even figured out how to make their walkers float.

And Kaidan? He'd be at her side too, but he'd be encouraging her with every step she took, giving her a wink or a peck on the cheek whenever Liara looked away. He'd laugh at Joker and James’ jokes, he'd argue with Garrus and Wrex about Shepard's resemblance to a pyjak, he'd tell Tali that it would be better for Shepard to actually support her own body weight but would thank her for trying, he’d ignore Javik until the very last moment where he would pick Shepard up and say that the primitives didn’t need floating walkers when he could just carry Shepard around everywhere. And then later, when the rest of the crew left, he’d stay behind and reassure her that she was doing fine, no matter how slowly she was progressing. He’d promise to stay by Shepard’s side no matter what, until they were both old and grey.

But instead of Kaidan and the rest of her crew, Shepard faced doctors and physical therapists speaking with cloying voices, like she was a child. She dealt with Jack and Miranda bickering again, even though most of Jack’s students were out of the hospital and Miranda still needed to run tests on Shepard’s implants. She gave forced smiles during Jacob’s video calls, watching his relationship with Brynn bloom while trying to ignore the stabbing feelings of jealousy that sat in her stomach whenever they looked at each other. She nibbled at the boxes of chocolate Zaeed and Kasumi got for her and said that they each had excellent taste in candy, even though Zaeed ate his way through half the box by the time he ever gave it to Shepard, while Kasumi found chocolate that was so rich Shepard could barely lick it without sending herself into a diabetic coma. She tried to meditate when Samara came to visit, but Shepard always found her mind wandering: if Samara suggested that Shepard picture herself on a beach, Shepard’s mind immediately dashed to Virmire; if she suggested a forest, Mindoir; her bed, the last night she spent with Kaidan. Shepard felt guilty when the door opened and it was never the people she expected, because she loved them as much as the rest of her crewmates. But she knew they were _safe_ ; could she say that for the rest of the Normandy crew?

“Your fault,” the Catalyst repeated each time Shepard’s mind landed on that thought. “If you had chosen to merge synthetic and organic life, then you would have no need to worry about your crew.”

But as torturous as physical therapy and the daydreams and the Catalyst were, none could quite compare to her meetings with Admiral Hackett. One day, about a week after Shepard woke up, Kasumi uncloaked herself out of nowhere.

“Does privacy not mean anything to you, Kasumi?” Miranda said, turning around. She’d pulled Shepard up into a sitting position to check some stitches on her chest, tugging the hospital gown to Shepard’s waist as she did. Shepard felt her face grow hot, but then again, she shouldn’t have been surprised: Kasumi _did_ go through her drawers after all.

“Do you want me to come back later?” Kasumi said. “Because I can. On the other hand, I don’t think Admiral Hackett really cares about privacy anymore. He wants to see Shep today.”

“ _Today_?” Miranda said.

“That’s what Kasumi said, right?” Shepard said, tugging the gown back over her chest.

“But you aren’t ready to deal with him,” Miranda said, scowling. “I want you to have at least walked three feet without a walker and had the catheter pulled out before he even thinks about coming in here.”

“The admiral isn’t really the type to wait,” Shepard said. “Especially if it’s big news. I’m surprised that he even gave you a week, Miranda.”

“I’m more surprised he hasn’t barged in here already,” Kasumi said. “But never mind that: what are you going to wear, Shep?” Shepard blinked. Kasumi chuckled at the expression on Shepard’s face. “Come on. You can’t exactly wear your Alliance blues, and as nice as that dress for Donovan Hock was, I don’t exactly think it’ll be the most comfortable outfit given your circumstances.”

“She was _injured_ ,” Miranda said through gritted teeth. “It’s a bloody miracle she isn’t dead, and we want to play paper dolls with her?”

“Can I at least just put on a bra and call it a day?” Shepard suggested. Kasumi and Miranda both looked at her before looking back at each other and rolling their eyes.

They compromised in the end: Kasumi was able to find a pair of old sweatpants and a faded _Fleet and Flotilla_ tank-top. Miranda donated a sports bra that probably cost more credits than Shepard even hoped to see in her life. Shepard managed to pull her hair up into a loose ponytail (how had it gotten so long?) and gave her teeth a quick scrub. Miranda took one quick glance at Shepard in the minutes before Hackett walked in before grabbing a washcloth and rubbing it over Shepard’s face vigorously.

“Jesus, Miranda,” Shepard said, trying to pull her head away. Her efforts were met with Miranda holding onto Shepard’s chin with one hand while attacking her face with the washcloth with the other. “I’m not a kid.”

“It’s just to be safe,” Miranda said, breathing heavily. “What if the press come with him? You _know_ Khalisah al-Jilani’s chomping at the bit to get a video of you.”

“I’m more worried about Diana Allers,” Kasumi said, shimmering into view. “Honestly, Shep, what were you thinking when you brought her onto the Normandy? At least, what were you thinking bringing her on without providing Jacob as eye-candy?” Shepard rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. Miranda stepped away, satisfied with her handiwork, before turning back to Kasumi.

“Can you get an ETA as to when Admiral Hackett will be here?” Miranda asked just as the door opened.

“Right now,” Kasumi replied, cloaking herself. Miranda stood up to her full height, putting her hands behind her back. Shepard followed her lead, shoving her blankets back and sitting up as tall as she could. As Hackett turned around from closing the door, Shepard immediately saluted him.

“At ease, Commander,” he said, a note of humour in his voice. He saluted her instead. “Seeing as you’re the one who saved the galaxy, I think it’s fair to say that you deserve a salute more than I do.” Shepard put her hand down.

“I couldn’t have done it without my crew or the Alliance sir,” Shepard said. “If it hadn’t been for all of you, this war could never have been won.”

“It could have,” the Catalyst whispered in her ear. Shepard clasped it and tried to make a face that looked like she was grimacing in pain. “You were just foolish to consider only one option.”

“I appreciate your flattery, Commander,” Hackett said, looking genuinely surprised and proud that she even acknowledged the Alliance. Miranda coughed, and Hackett’s eyes glanced over to her.

“Miss Lawson,” he said. “I want to thank you for getting Shepard up and running again.”

“Thank you, Admiral,” Miranda said.

“Best person for the job,” Shepard said, flashing Miranda a smile. Miranda gave her a small one back.

“Undoubtedly,” Hackett said. “We’ll have to find you a permanent position in one of our labs, Miss Lawson, because the work you’ve done is truly incredible. I’ll pass on a message to some of the teams, and I’m sure Shepard will be glad to write you a recommendation as well.”

“Absolutely,” Shepard said. “Miranda’s the only reason why I’m still here today.”

“I had some help as well,” Miranda said. Shepard might have been imagining it, but she was sure she caught Miranda blushing. Miranda cleared her throat. “But thank you. It would be…an honour to serve the Alliance.” Hackett gave Miranda a brief nod.

“We’ll definitely need to explore your skillset in private, Miss Lawson,” Hackett said. “And while I’d love to discuss it with you right now, the commander and I need to have a quick word in private. I’m sure you understand.”

“Of course,” Miranda said, giving Hackett a nod of her own. She squeezed Shepard’s shoulder before leaving, grasping at thin air until she found Kasumi. Kasumi squeaked and protested as Miranda dragged her out, letting the door close behind them. Hackett waited until he was certain Miranda and Kasumi were a good distance away before he faced Shepard again. He’d barely opened his mouth to speak before the question tumbled out of Shepard’s mouth.

“Do you know where the Normandy is?” Hackett sighed and shook his head. Shepard’s stomach and chest clenched as Hackett looked back at her with sad eyes.

“I’m not going to lie to you, Shepard,” Hackett said. “We’ve sent messages out through every single comm channel that we know of: human, asari, turian, salarian, we’ve hacked into the batarian systems…if our messages are getting through to them, their messages aren’t getting back to us. And with the relays down, we can’t even send a search party out. It’d take too long, months, maybe years. All we have to do is hope that they’ll contact us soon.”

“Of course, sir,” Shepard said. Her mouth felt incredibly dry. She licked her lips, trying to ignore the pounding noise of the Catalyst in her head. Was it laughing at her? Hackett kept talking, and Shepard strained her ears to hear him.

“But I wanted to talk to you Shepard because I’m curious as to what happened up there when you tried to fire the Crucible. When the reports said that someone made it to the beam, I assumed it was you…but then a second person made it up to the Citadel as well. Do you know who it was?” Shepard looked down at her sheets and swallowed. Anderson’s face, beaming at her after she was made Spectre, ran through her mind. The second image was less pleasant: watching her finger pull the trigger on the gun aimed at him, shooting him on the Illusive Man’s orders. Her head buzzed.

“Shepard?” Hackett prompted. “I know this must be upsetting for you, but we need to know what made the Crucible go off and who was up there with you.”

“Aren’t you going to tell him, Shepard?” the Catalyst asked. “Aren’t you going to tell him that you shot and killed the man who would move mountains for you? Aren’t you going to tell Admiral Hackett that you killed one of his best military men?” Shepard bit her lip and shook her head. How could she admit that she killed him? Even if the Illusive Man was controlling her, Shepard should have been stronger. She should have aimed the gun at the Illusive Man the first time instead.

“Anderson,” Shepard finally choked out. “I…I was the second one on the Citadel. Anderson got through the beam first.”

“Anderson got to the beam?” Hackett said. He rested his chin on his hand and shook his head. “But that doesn’t make any _sense_ …I thought we told Anderson to stay with Major Coates…”

“It was…pretty chaotic down there, sir,” Shepard said. “I knew that Anderson was making the run to the beam, but once we were in the vicinity of the Reaper, it was all over.”

“I see,” Hackett said. His shoulders slumped and he took a deep shuddering breath. “Would I be incorrect in assuming that Anderson succumbed to his injuries once you were on the Citadel?” Shepard hesitated.

“Tell him, _Commander_ ,” the Catalyst hissed. “Tell him what you did.”

“Yes sir,” Shepard said. “He was trying to get the Crucible fired but his injuries were pretty severe.”

“You _liar_ ,” the Catalyst said. “Commander Jane Shepard, too afraid to admit that she’s done something wrong.”

“And then we can only assume that the blast from the Crucible incinerated his body,” Hackett said, sighing. He hung his head briefly before standing up straight again. “Thank you for telling me this, Commander. As soon as you’re able, the Alliance is planning to hold a memorial service for those we lost. We’re trying to wrangle the Council into it too—the Citadel _is_ above Earth now, after all—and make it a full galactic affair, but at the very least, we need to show respect for the lives humanity lost. And as you were one of the few that knew Anderson best…” Hackett sighed again. “This was a very messy war, Shepard.”

Shepard swallowed again. “With all due respect, sir, I don’t think I’d be quite right for a memorial service. All those people we lost and with me still alive…it might be rubbing some salt in the wound.”

“Perhaps,” Hackett admitted. “But it might also do the people some good to see that the hero of the galaxy is alive and thriving. After all we’ve lost, we need a morale boost.”

“Yes sir,” Shepard said, her heart pounding. “Did you need anything else?”

“No,” Hackett said. “Well, there is the matter of promotions and other ceremonial details, but the list of awards you’d receive could probably reach the end of the Milky Way. We’ll have to discuss this at a later date.”

“Miranda could discuss it with you,” Shepard said. Her head was starting to spin as she realized the Catalyst hadn’t fucking left, but was sitting at the end of her fucking bed. It was silent but looking up at Hackett expectantly, waiting for him to leave. “Or it might be better to save some of those ceremonies for when my crew comes back. I’m sure there’s more than one award waiting for all of them.”

“Of course,” Hackett said. “Combined, I’m pretty sure that list could reach the Andromeda galaxy.” Shepard gave a small chuckle at that. “All right then, Shepard. I’ll go and track down Miss Lawson, and I’ll leave you to get some rest. You’re looking pretty worn out.”

“Thank you, sir,” Shepard said. The two of them saluted each other, but a piece of Shepard wanted him to stay. The Catalyst had become silent, and she was fairly certain that it was going to start the second Hackett left.

The Catalyst followed Hackett as he left, watching him close the door. Shepard pulled her blankets back up and watched the Catalyst, never taking her eyes off it. The Catalyst turned to face Shepard and the two stared at each other. Shepard broke the silence first.

“You know you’re not real,” she said. “You’re just trying to make me feel guilty.”

“But if you can see me, perhaps your guilt has some weight to it,” the Catalyst replied. “Tell me, how many people couldn’t you save? It didn’t start in your military career either: it started in the colonies.”

“Mindoir was different,” Shepard snapped. “I was sixteen and my mother hid me away. Not that it mattered—our house was one of the few the Alliance actually hit with an artillery strike.”

“You didn’t do anything when Elizabeth Armstrong was dragged away by the slavers,” the Catalyst said. “Nor did you when Alex Lovell was raped right in front of you. He screamed your name and you ran.”

“I shot the slaver first.”

“Only after Alex screamed your name and tried to crawl towards you. You only shot the slaver because he looked towards you,” the Catalyst said. “Do you not remember Alex’s face? How it was caked in mud and blood? How the batarians had tied his hands over his head and pulled his pants down in front of thousands of people? How you thought he liked you back when he smiled at you during class one day—”

“Shut _up_ ,” Shepard muttered, pulling her pillow over her head. “You’re not real, you’re not real, you’re not real—”

“Keep repeating yourself,” the Catalyst said. “But you know I’m right. You are pathetic. The batarians should have taken you when they took Mindoir instead of destroying the entire colony.” Shepard waited, gripping her pillow so tightly that she felt her knuckles nearly bursting from her skin. She didn’t pull it off her head until she heard the familiar _click_ of Miranda’s heels as she walked in. She tried to smile and nod her head in the right places as Miranda gushed about how she could get a position working on making prosthetic limbs that were indistinguishable from real limbs, but she felt like a doll or a puppet, trying to say the right things to keep everyone happy.

Because deep down, Shepard knew the Catalyst was right: she was a fake, a fraud, dirty, disgusting, and more deserving of death than she was alive.

She wished Kaidan was with her.


	7. Six

It was amazing to see how hope changed the entire atmosphere of the ship. Kaidan couldn’t believe how much more productive they were now. Westmoreland and Campbell stopped bickering and started making process on the door scanner. Cortez and Vega were bouncing between engineering and the cargo deck, making sure every piece held up: no one wanted the stress of making it out of the system and realizing that half the ship ended floating in the middle of space. Garrus kept the guns calibrated.

                _And it’s all because of Shepard_ , Kaidan thought, taking a sip from his coffee mug as he watched Joker navigate past the Exodus Cluster relay. _Without that news, no-one would be this productive. No one._ Of course, that was what Shepard did best: she was good at bringing people together, even if it meant using a Pull to get them to listen.

                Joker sighed, breaking Kaidan out of his thoughts. “I didn’t realize how bad the relays were,” he said. Kaidan glanced over. At a first look, it still looked the same as it always did: still grey, still with two prongs, still with most of its shielding intact…but then Kaidan saw that the eezo’s signature glow was missing. The relay looked sad without it.

                “How long do you think it will be before it gets back up again?” Kaidan asked. Joker shrugged.

                “Who knows?” he said. “Humanity never had any hand in the relays. They were always here. We kind of assumed they always would be.”

                “But we could put some more eezo in them, right?” Kaidan said. “I mean, not for all of them, but at least some of them, right?” Joker shrugged again.

                “I’m the best pilot in the Alliance, not the best engineer,” Joker said. “I could transport the eezo and be back on Earth before dinner time—though I might end up with like six eyes and four legs in the process—but actually knowing how much we need? That’s a question for Garrus or Tali, not me.”

                “Yeah,” Kaidan conceded, slurping the rest of his coffee. “I mean, a ship controlled by one guy can only do so much. And besides, he wouldn’t want all those biotics acting up…”

                Joker rolled his eyes. “Maybe you should leave the jokes to me, Major,” he said. “Speaking of jokes, you want to hear a good one?”

                “Why do I get the feeling that I’m not going to like this?” Kaidan asked, resting his arm on the pilot’s chair. Joker always…well, joked around, but he never announced them unless he was trying to be serious. Trying to lighten the mood as Shepard put it, though even Kaidan noticed that she rolled her eyes from time to time at Joker’s mouth.

                “Because you aren’t,” Joker said. He pulled up a map. “So we’re here, right? Just outside the Utopia system. And here”—Joker zoomed out—“is Earth. If the mass relays were online, this trip would take about three hours at the most, and that’s if there were, like, a million factors against us. But because they aren’t—”

                “How long is it going to take us?” Kaidan said. Joker rubbed his chin.

                “At a guess…maybe another six months? That’s if we’re lucky,” Joker said. “This isn’t like two hundred years ago, where it took pilots ten years to get to Earth from Pluto. Even without the relays, this trip would take about a week and a half, maybe two weeks. But the Normandy isn’t running at full capacity, we might not have enough fuel, we’ll probably have to find a station somewhere to keep making repairs…”

                Kaidan bit the inside of his cheek. He wasn’t stupid. He knew the trip would take longer than normal. He knew that the odds of finding another Alliance—or even another Council—ship was slim to none. He knew that the Normandy was struggling. Still, it didn’t make hearing it any easier.

                “If I may, Mr. Moreau?” Edi’s cool voice said. Joker winced. Kaidan felt a stab of pity for him: it couldn’t be easy dealing with a girlfriend who had no memories or emotions of you.

                “You don’t have to call him ‘Mr. Moreau’, Edi,” Kaidan said, trying to save the situation. “You can just call him Joker.”

                “When Mr. Moreau’s name was input into my system, that was what his name was requested as,” Edi said. “If you wish to change the input settings, you would need to manually change them in the AI Core, Major Alenko.”

                “Got it,” Kaidan said, making a mental note to ask Tali to do that. “But what did you want to do?”

                “I did not want to do anything,” Edi said. “If Mr. Moreau wishes, I could set up a scanner for other spaceships in the region, making a preference for Alliance ships.”

                “That would be great, Edi,” Joker said, his voice tight. “Can you do that, please? Don’t call back up here until you do, okay?”

                “As you wish, Mr. Moreau,” Edi said. There was long silence after she logged off, punctuated by Joker’s button pressing. Finally, Joker sighed.

                “This isn’t going to get better, is it?” he said.

                “Don’t say that,” Kaidan said. “The second we get back on Earth, or the Citadel, I’m sure Tali will be able to—”

                “I’m sure Tali will be able to do a lot of things,” Joker said. “But what if she can’t? What if there’s something completely fried in Edi and the technology’s so unique to her that it—”

                “Stop,” Kaidan said, putting his hands on Joker’s shoulders. “Spiraling is the worst thing you could be doing right now.” Joker was silent for a moment before collapsing back on his chair.

                “Edi’s the only girl who’s actually loved me for _me_ and not just for pity points,” Joker mumbled. Kaidan gave his shoulders a squeeze. “And I didn’t realize how _lost_ I’d feel without her. And you know what’s funny? I hated her when I first heard her. Like smeared grease all over her camera hated her. And now…”

                “I know,” Kaidan said, giving Joker’s shoulders another squeeze. “Maybe you should let me drive for a while. You’ve been at this for a while, Joker—you need to get some actual shut-eye.”

                “Was it the pee in the bottles that gave it away?” Joker asked. Kaidan laughed before helping him up.

                “Go, take a break. I’ve got things covered up here,” Kaidan said, walking behind Joker to the cockpit door. “If anything comes up, you’ll be the first to know.”

                “Yeah, yeah,” Joker said. “Just don’t crash the ship into an asteroid, because I don’t think we have enough parts to fix that, plus I’m not a fan of suffocating in space, you know?” Kaidan chuckled again, before closing the door behind Joker. He walked back over to the pilot’s seat, biting his cheek hard. He felt pressure behind his skull, though he knew that it was just an ordinary stress headache, not an actual migraine.

                He’d told Joker that spiraling was a problem he shouldn’t be dealing with right now, but how could Kaidan say that to him when he was nearly spiraling himself? He was a hypocrite. A liar.

                Kaidan took a shaky breath. “Not the time,” he whispered to himself, before resting his hands on the controls. A distraction: good for migraines, and apparently good for the anxiety and self-doubt he’d had in his early career days. As the Normandy continued, he began to let himself relax a little. Yes, she was still moving slower than she normally would, but at least they’d managed to configure some of the FTL drives. How long would the trip take if they didn’t have those? A century? Two? A few more months wouldn’t hurt. He wouldn’t let them hurt.

                Kaidan shook his head again, before fiddling with his omni-tool until he found some decent music. He’d always liked old musicals: his mother blasted them around the house when he was growing up. For whatever reason, his dad always liked the original version of _Miss Saigon_. His mom liked it too; or at least, she _did_. When Kaidan was little, he remembered that his mom used to sing the finale song to him as a lullaby before he went to sleep. Even after he ended up at Jump Zero, he used to hum the song to himself when he felt homesick, which was all the time. Of course, then Shelby ruined it by mentioning to him that the song was about the main character killing herself. It dampened the whole vibe a little bit, and when Kaidan mentioned it to his mother, she stopped singing it. But hearing it appear on his music playlist…well, it was a nice song. He didn’t really pay attention to the lyrics, but as he heard them now, he noticed that the song wasn’t about suicide after all: instead, it sounded like the actress was singing a love song. At first, it sounded like she was singing to a baby— _her_ baby, Kaidan figured—but as the song went on, Kaidan thought she was singing to her missing lover.

                Kaidan wasn’t an idiot; he knew that the song was probably just dedicated to her baby, but still, he liked the picture of the woman and the lover in his head, separated by an ocean, longing for the other but never knowing if they’d see each other again. If he pictured a little harder, the baby disappeared, just leaving behind the star-crossed lovers. The musical was over two-hundred years old, and like a lot of the musicals that were that old, Kaidan never really paid attention to the stories, but now he wondered what separated the two characters. Was it a war? Was it an affair? A simple miscommunication? One dying and then coming back to life?

                Kaidan inhaled sharply. Now he knew he was being foolish. Whatever this musical was about, it wasn’t about him or Shepard. There were no parallels. He was just being overly sentimental.

                _It’s just because you’re going to see her again soon_ , he reassured himself. _That’s why you can’t stop thinking about her_.

                But was that it all was? The anticipation of seeing Shepard again? It had to be. The last time he saw her he was doubled over in pain, with Tali barely able to support him, begging Shepard to not leave him behind, to take him with her, to not let her die alone _again_ —

                Kaidan switched the music off.  It seemed like the better option than leaving it on. Why was he doing this? Shepard was fine. He heard the message last week. She was alive—that was the important part, wasn’t it?

                He didn’t have an answer. He tried to will the dream-Shepard into existence, but all he could get was a flash of red hair, a few freckles. Nothing solid, nothing to help him figure out the answer to the question. So he just drove on, listening to the Normandy and trying to make her move as effortlessly as Joker did.

                Kaidan had no idea how long he’d been sitting in the pilot’s seat when the door suddenly slammed open and Joker hobbled up to him. A string of lights on the ceiling flashed as Joker made his way up to his seat, indicating that Edi was following him.

                “What’s up?” Kaidan asked, standing up and letting Joker slide into the seat. “I thought I told you to get some rest, didn’t I?”

                “Edi found an Alliance ship,” Joker said. His cap was knocked sideways, though his fingers were moving so fast on the Normandy’s controls that he didn’t bother to fix it. “Approximately thirty minutes out. She thinks it’s a cruiser.”

                “I did not think that, Mr. Moreau,” Edi said. “It appears to be cruiser based off its sizing and shape.”

                “So she thinks it’s a cruiser,” Joker repeated. “I’m trying to get the voice channels online; this is gonna be _huge_ if it’s actually an Alliance ship.”

                “What would an Alliance ship be doing out here?” Kaidan asked, frowning. “I thought Hackett recalled all of them to transport the Crucible.”

                “Beats me,” Joker said. “But it matters that it’s out _here_ , isn’t it? Can you tell Traynor and Liara to get the comms online? Actually, scratch that. Edi?”

                “I already began patching the communication systems as soon as I encountered the ship,” Edi said. “Please wait while the communications go online.”

                “C’mon c’mon c’mon,” Joker mumbled to himself. Kaidan didn’t pay attention. He felt so _sure_ that Hackett wanted all the ships back to the Alliance: not just the Fifth Fleet, but all the fleets. And if the relays were _all_ down, how did it get out here?

                There was a long pause. Kaidan wondered if Edi had been mistaken, but then the thought quickly jumped out of his mind. Even if Edi wasn’t an AI anymore, she was still part of the best ship in the galaxy. Finally, something crackled on the comm. Both Kaidan and Joker let out a deep breath: Kaidan hadn’t even been aware he’d been holding it. Joker fumbled for the comms button, but Edi already turned it on for him.

                “This is the SSV Normandy, seeking assistance from any Alliance ships in the area,” Joker said. “The ship’s taken some major damage, and we need help trying to DC it. Nothing major, but we’re seeking permission for either boarding or assistance. Over.” He clicked off. Another crackle. Then, a female voice came on. Her vocal quality was similar, if not exactly the same, but Kaidan knew who she sounded like. He wouldn’t be surprised if she looked like her too.

                “Copy that, Normandy,” the voice said. “This is Operations Chief Lynn Williams, representing the SSV Bangkok. We’ll rendezvous at your position ASAP. Do not move. We’ll be there soon. Chief Williams over and out.” The comms crackled out. Kaidan gripped the back of Joker’s chair and shook his head. Joker flexed his fingers before looking up at Kaidan.

                 “Do you want to be the one who talks to Ashley’s sister first, or do you want me to do it?” He asked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cool, guess who's trash and literally forgot about this? (spoiler: it's me. it's always me)
> 
> i will try and avoid long gaps like that in the future, but i can't 100 percent promise y'all, and for that i really do apologize. i do have some chapters that i'm trying to revise rn, so hopefully that gap won't happen again.
> 
> anyway, i figured kaidan's gotta have some outside angst too and lbr the williams sisters would've joined asap after ash became a war hero. as for the musical thing: idk i feel like ash and kaidan bonded over weird stuff like that, also the games don't really go into too much depth about kaidan's likes and dislikes in comparison to ash. gotta headcanon something i guess.


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